IATF 16949:2016 Major NC pertaining to 7.1.5.2.1 Calibration/verification records

[codya24]

Hello.. I am the Quality manager for a tier 2 automotive lighting manufacturer. We just finished out IATF Surveillance audit and were hit with a major concerning out calibration records. We have 90% customer owned fixtures in our facility. Our customer also calibrates their own fixtures each year. So we are required to send them back to their facility once they are due. They do send us the calibration data and replace the calibration stickers once they are returned.
Our auditor stated that we the supplier are responsible for auditing and verifying that our customer is ISO 17025 certified or that they meet the requirements and scope of a certified lab. Has anyone went through this before? It doesn't sit right with me how we the supplier must demand our customer to supply this information regarding their owned tooling.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

I can see the following communication:

‍ you
customer

‍ Dear customer, are you ISO 17025 accredited?
Heck NO!
‍ Do you meet the requirements of a certified lab?
Nope!!!
‍ so I am sorry to inform you we can’t do business anymore

Auditor is happy

 

[Ashland78]

I agree with the auditor, many will want to self calibrate to save money, or get data that is not accredited. I see you are saying your customer verified these, but all gages shall have ISO 17025 accredited calibration. We once had a customer who didn't mind that we had 15 fixtures we could validate in house with CAD data on our CMM. Later on we found out we had to pay BIG bucks to get them calibrated by a 3rd party accredited company to protect the customer and not have bias in our measurement results.

Your customer may not mind but IATF requirements do require to protect the ultimate customer. I hope I explained that well. Please let me know if this doesn't make sense anyone who is more rehearsed. I ran a calibration lab for 20 years.

 

[Funboi]

but all gages shall have ISO 17025 accredited calibration

Really? Got a requirement to back that up?

 

[Ashland78]

It says that in the requirements. If you can't get that accreditation then you have to show evidence or get agreement with your customers.

I realize that there are items that are not accredited, what we did is showed 3 companies that stated on their letterhead of email that they could not provide accredited calibration. I understand spectrophotometer and chemist equipment, think Metrohm as OEM, that can only be serviced and verified by OEM.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

or get agreement with your customers.

In the case of this thread, the fixture "calibration" provider IS THE CUSTOMER.

 

[Funboi]

It says that in the requirements. If you can't get that accreditation then you have to show evidence or get agreement with your customers.

I can’t find your statement in my copy. My copy says an external lab… either accredited to 17025 OR evidence it‘s acceptable to the customer.
If the customer does the calibration that requirement has been met and the auditor is incompetent. It says nothing about documented evidence of acceptability. It may be unusual but that doesn’t make it non-compliant or wrong.
Codya24 - reject the auditor’s report. It’s inaccurate.

 

[codya24]

I can’t find your statement in my copy. My copy says an external lab… either accredited to 17025 OR evidence it‘s acceptable to the customer.
If the customer does the calibration that requirement has been met and the auditor is incompetent. It says nothing about documented evidence of acceptability. It may be unusual but that doesn’t make it non-compliant or wrong.
Codya24 - reject the auditor’s report. It’s inaccurate.

So this was my initial comment to the audit after it blew my mind. He did proceed to show me Sanction revision SI10 7.1.5.3.2. External laboratory effective Aug 2021 that removes the customer approval and forces us to certify our customer. We would certify these dimensional fixtures with a 3rd party but our customer has the data needed and will not release it to us since they own the fixtures. It has really put us in a bind.

 

[codya24]

I can’t find your statement in my copy. My copy says an external lab… either accredited

I can’t find your statement in my copy. My copy says an external lab… either accredited to 17025 OR evidence it‘s acceptable to the customer.
If the customer does the calibration that requirement has been met and the auditor is incompetent. It says nothing about documented evidence of acceptability. It may be unusual but that doesn’t make it non-compliant or wrong.
Codya24 - reject the auditor’s report. It’s inaccurate.

to 17025 OR evidence it‘s acceptable to the customer.
If the customer does the calibration that requirement has been met and the auditor is incompetent. It says nothing about documented evidence of acceptability. It may be unusual but that doesn’t make it non-compliant or wrong.
Codya24 - reject the auditor’s report. It’s inaccurate.

 

[codya24]

This is his exact NC objective evidence:
7.1.5.3.2, SI# 10- Gages 3536, 004558, 004631, 262-013, 267-017, CAL-016, CAL-021, CAL-022, and several others owned by the customer do not have records available to show evidence that the lab facility's scope includes the capability to perform the required calibration, and there is not evidence that the lab is either 17025 or meets the requirements of IATF 7.1.5.3.1.


7.1.5.3.2- Gage 262-013 267-017, CAL-022, CAL-005, and CAL-034 have calibration certs that do not include the mark of a national accreditation body.