IATF 16949 and ISO 9001 Remote Support - Pass Through Inventory

[Crimpshrine13]

I'm not sure that ISO 9001 is the complete answer, as you still have customers that require IATF registration and expect that all of your products fall under it. It could be that they will accept ISO 9001 and just move forward, but if there are a lot of customers it could be a heady task to break the news to all of them. Knowing now that the same CB services your facility and your parent company's, it seems like it would be a good idea to get them talking to each other to work this out.

I agree. I am not sure what the top of the technical team at our CB will say about this, but both CB locations need to fully understand the circumstances and offer the best solution for us. At this point I still do not have a response from him yet, so I do not know if he agrees or disagrees with their Japan location, but it would be probably the best that both CB locations discuss to get this resolved. Thanks.

 

[Crimpshrine13]

Can't your IATF scope just be for Part C (i.e.; production of part C)? That way there is no possible "misrepresentation." Otherwise, just have your customers buy from you Japan HQ. Why be the middle man? Or just let the customers know you're simply a distributor of parts A & B. I would keep ISO and IATF out of it as much as possible.

We already have the third party audits for locally produced parts. The issue is that because IATF cannot audit non-fab process (which is the pass-through parts), the status of imported parts is unknown (not audited) after being shipped out of Japan. This was why the auditor brought this up in the discussion since our customers require IATF compliance over all products (our parent company in Japan can be ISO 9001 certified and IATF compliant, but because the imported part's process ends when they ship, the inventory here is never audited for storage and shipping).

 

[Crimpshrine13]

Summarizing.

1. For your customer you are nominated supplier of pass-through parts.​

2. Your total quality performance score is affected by concerns related to pass-through parts.​

3. You manage (lead) corrective action process for pass-through parts concerns.​

Did I understand it correctly?

I guess scope of your automotive QMS covers pass through parts too.
If parts are made in Japan, then IATF requirements apply to them too.

Problem is, first you have not identified manufacturing among remote supporting function you get form your HQ.​

Second, they are not IATF 16949 certified.​

Third, most important, they resits, and that's nothing new for me, as I know their approach very well.​

​

You are in bad position as long your customer reports concerns, monitor performance including pass-through parts.
If it is not reported, so auditor won't mind otherwise he is obliged to audit your interfaces with HQ.
And it won't be nice for you and your HQ too.

Two options.

1. Discuss matter with your customer and exclude pass-through parts from your performance and satisfaction score.​

2. Discuss with HQ their approach to development of their QMS towards IATF 16949 certification.​

Probably you won't succeed, so prepare for mayor nonconformity during future 3rd part audit for 4.3.1 and then you won't be able to do too much within <90 days.​

Last option​

3. Try transfer Japan production to you or local supplier.​

Your 1 - 3 interpretation of the circumstances is roughly correct. The customers do not distinguish our parent company from us in terms of whether the parts are made here or in Japan (and this would be too much for them as each customer headquarter collects the data from each plant and it's not always well-organized at plant floor level), but they require IATF compliance for all parts. The support function of our parent company in Japan is already included in our scope, so they get audited every year for process design (they do the tool design). The problem is that the pass-through parts from Japan that are stored in our warehouse is never audited because IATF cannot audit non-fab process. Basically once these pass-through parts leave Japan, these are not audited in terms of storage, preservation and shipping. This was why the auditor brought this up in the discussion. The issue is that our parent company is struggling to get certified for IATF 16949 and it's been at least 2 - 3 years they've been discussing but never came to realization. But even if they remain as ISO 9001 with IATF compliance, there's got to be a way that pass-through parts inventory is monitored by the 3rd party and they just can't be left fallen in the crack.

As Jim had suggested, it may be best that this be discussed between our CB location and the CB in Japan (same company) so they can suggest the best way to resolve this issue. I personally feel that we get included in their scope as remote location for distribution would be the best and easiest option but their technical team needs to understand the circumstance thoroughly and agree to this as they seem to have completely different opinion about this (they even said that this was none of our business, which I thought was kind of rude).

 

[Golfman25]

We already have the third party audits for locally produced parts. The issue is that because IATF cannot audit non-fab process (which is the pass-through parts), the status of imported parts is unknown (not audited) after being shipped out of Japan. This was why the auditor brought this up in the discussion since our customers require IATF compliance over all products (our parent company in Japan can be ISO 9001 certified and IATF compliant, but because the imported part's process ends when they ship, the inventory here is never audited for storage and shipping).

I get that, but it is really your customer's problem. I'll bet they haven't even thought of it -- your just getting caught by boilerplate "everything IATF." The discussion should be with your customer and HQ, IMO. I have had situation where the auditor brought something up, we contacted the customer, who shook his head and said "we have never thought about it, that's not what we want."

 

[Englishman Abroad]

I know that in the US the CBs have a Strange Outlook on things… However parts are not IATF certified, only a manufacturing site. It looks to me like you have outsourced a manufacturing process to a ISO 9001 certified sub supplier (which happens to be part of the same group). See Section 8.4?

Or am I over simplyfying?

 

[Crimpshrine13]

I know that in the US the CBs have a Strange Outlook on things… However parts are not IATF certified, only a manufacturing site. It looks to me like you have outsourced a manufacturing process to a ISO 9001 certified sub supplier (which happens to be part of the same group). See Section 8.4?

Or am I over simplyfying?

These pass-through parts are manufactured by our parent company in Japan, which is still ISO 9001 certified but not yet IATF 16949 certified. The issue is that some of our customers require IATF 16949 compliance.

 

[Crimpshrine13]

I get that, but it is really your customer's problem. I'll bet they haven't even thought of it -- your just getting caught by boilerplate "everything IATF." The discussion should be with your customer and HQ, IMO. I have had situation where the auditor brought something up, we contacted the customer, who shook his head and said "we have never thought about it, that's not what we want."

Still though even if the customer purchasing department or the assembly person does not realize it, if the customer manual requires compliance to IATF 16949, it's going to be a problem I think. Auditors won't care what the individual people we deal with everyday - for them customer's requirements in the manual is everything.

 

[blile]

We also ship pass-through parts from our parent company in Japan. Our parent company is IATF certified, and we are listed as a remote support location supporting logistics, warehousing, sales, and customer support. I am not sure if ISO 9001 works in the same way (although I think it does) but we are audited as a remote support location.
Even though you are Tier 2, the customer is requiring IATF?

 

[blile]

We also receive some pushback whenever we ask such questions. We have another location that I thought should also be remote support but it isn't yet. I basically was told it was none of my business too. Ultimately we tell our auditor that the CB in Japan says its not necessary and we are waiting for them to make the decision. You could just make sure that those areas are audited internally in preparation for them to eventually get added as a remote support location. It may be enough to satisfy the OFI.

 

[Crimpshrine13]

We also receive some pushback whenever we ask such questions. We have another location that I thought should also be remote support but it isn't yet. I basically was told it was none of my business too. Ultimately we tell our auditor that the CB in Japan says its not necessary and we are waiting for them to make the decision. You could just make sure that those areas are audited internally in preparation for them to eventually get added as a remote support location. It may be enough to satisfy the OFI.

We're tier 2 but some of our customers require IATF certification, and ISO certification is a minimum.

With regards to the non-fab area of our process (the inventory control of the goods we import from our parent company in Japan), we ended up getting ISO 9001 certification at the same time. This way there's no areas in our processes that are not audited by the 3rd party. The next surveillance audit will include this and we'll just have to get it over with and won't have to worry about anyone questioning the gray area. Obviously in our quality manual even the imported goods have the same level of control, but the auditor did not like the fact that it was not audited by the 3rd party because some of our customers require IATF certification.

ISO 9001 does not work the same way as IATF 16949 and cannot include remote support function. I had confirmed this twice with CB's technical team.