IATF 16949 6.1.2.3(e) Contingency Plan Testing

[morteza]

My view is that the "as appropriate" applies only to the example of simulations, because it is included inside the parentheses about simulations. If it were outside the parentheses, I would agree with you. On the other hand, I hope you are right and I am wrong! It will be interesting to see how this gets audited as has been previously mentioned here.

Periodical testing of contingency plans is a requirement. "as appropriate" applies to the example.

 

[K. Lawrence]

Is anyone differentiating between Contingency Planning and Emergency Action Planning? It seems like many companies are combining the two. My read is Contingency Planning is more for continuity of business while Emergency Planning is reaction to life and death issues, natural disasters and environmental hazards. I'd appreciate anyone's feedback.

 

[rhae49]

O All,

Our company just went through our Stage 2 IATF audit and one of our findings was not testing our contingency plan (major). We have a contingency plan but we have not had time to do any simulations or make a schedule. This is the companies 1st ever attempt to be certified to a standard. Yes I know go right for the gusto. I think that with the simulations you do not have to actually test the system you just have to go through the steps as if it is happening and then evaluate if it is an okay system or does it need to be improved on. We do not want to impact the customer in anyway. Any thoughts?

 

[GearGuy]

O All,

Our company just went through our Stage 2 IATF audit and one of our findings was not testing our contingency plan (major). We have a contingency plan but we have not had time to do any simulations or make a schedule. This is the companies 1st ever attempt to be certified to a standard. Yes I know go right for the gusto. I think that with the simulations you do not have to actually test the system you just have to go through the steps as if it is happening and then evaluate if it is an okay system or does it need to be improved on. We do not want to impact the customer in anyway. Any thoughts?

I would agree. A Fire Drill does not actually begin by starting a fire!
'Simulate' the event and then ensure that the contingency plans can be enacted and are effective.

 

[HeidiP]

We are about to get a non-conformance for not documenting our periodic testing of our contingency plan. The standard is very specific with regard to what needs documented and this is not one of those instances, I plan to answer accordingly. We did test several of them and only documented that we did not how we did it. We received over 5 feet of snow in two days this past December, were under a governor declared state of emergency for over a week, stayed open and made deliveries throughout the whole ordeal and are receiving a non-conformance for not documenting testing of contingency plans. Unbelievable.

 

[Golfman25]

We are about to get a non-conformance for not documenting our periodic testing of our contingency plan. The standard is very specific with regard to what needs documented and this is not one of those instances, I plan to answer accordingly. We did test several of them and only documented that we did not how we did it. We received over 5 feet of snow in two days this past December, were under a governor declared state of emergency for over a week, stayed open and made deliveries throughout the whole ordeal and are receiving a non-conformance for not documenting testing of contingency plans. Unbelievable.

I know that guy. Good luck.

 

[cbhigdon3]

One option is to simulate the potential contingency plan and all of the associated actions. As an example, you could have data on the financial impact to your organization and to the customer of trucking the work to a different location, the impact to lead time, the notification and escalation protocols within the company, the notification protocols at the customer and to other "interested parties" and then have a customer representative sign off on this as being acceptable.

In our case, we process engine blocks for a major OEM program, so shutting off our process to actually test the contingency plan and truck work to the backup plant several hours away isn't a feasible option (without making our customer really angry). So we came up with a financial impact model that highlights just how much of a hit we'd take, put together a model for emergency trucking, developed a customer notification protocol, and established our own internal escalation plan. This was put into a file and then shared (minus financial modeling) with our customer. Our leadership has reviewed all of the data and signed it (as part of our annual review of the plan per our internal procedure). And, our customer has signed off on it indicating that they know we have a plan.

When we went through our IATF audit last month, our CB said it was fine.

 

[Scanton]

We also went the simulation route:

One simulation was that one of the Toughbooks (laptops) used from programming our machines had a hard drive failure so the data was corrupted and we couldn’t program certain machines. We simulated that the setter discovered this as he was about to program said machine for a new order.
We recorded a timeline of events as we followed our procedures, and collect evidence of each task as we went along. Long story short, from start to finish it took less than two hours to get the laptop back up and running and ready to use.

The evidence included screen grabs of the back-ups, a record of who did what and when, the receipt from a local retailer for a hard drive, the old hard drive and even pictorial evidence of me cloning the new hard drive from the back up and installing the new hard drive, and the setter using the reinstalled Toughbook to program his machine.

I think as long as the simulation is as close to reflecting real life failures and events are recorded in real time, the evidence will prove if the contingency plan works or not. We made sure that Toughbook was not going to be needed on the day of the simulation. If it was, I would have stopped at the successful cloning of the hard drive from back up, which was surprisingly quick and easy.

And before anyone asks, No. No programming takes place at night, at the weekends or on bank holidays

Our CB auditor reviewed our simulations and said that the requirements of this clause had been met.

 

[Brizilla]

Some are easy to do and probably is already done by your company such as fire drill, earthquake drill, violent person in the workplace, first aid drill, chem spill drill and others can be addressed through table talks on things you cannot simulate.

I've worked in Mfg. all my life and the only drill we've ever been through is a fire drill. So, I would suggest "probably already done by your company" isn't as valid as you might think. Of course that's only 9 or 10 companies but still...

 

[KimGr]

We are using the contingency plan as impact not specifically involving safety and using the EAP as a separate document. The subject matter, like fire, chemical spill, etc. is on both documents. EAP for safety. Once the employees are safe we move to the contingency plan for things like no production, missed work, environmental impact.