IATF 16949 - Product Safety Escalation Process Timeliness

[cpearison]

IATF 16949 Clause 6.4.1
The organization shall have documented processes for the management of product-safety related products and manufacturing process which shall include but not be limited to the following where applicable:
• h) Defined responsibilities, definition of escalation process and flow of information, including top management and customer notification

Would everyone tell me the timing in which your company follow from 1st found possible discrepancy to customer notification. Right now our team is looking at a 2 day (48hr) process. I am worried that it may too difficult to manage, if a discrepancy were to occur.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Cindy Pearison

 

[Sidney Vianna]

In line with risk based thinking, I would propose that timeliness of escalation should be commensurate with the potential consequences of the issue.

 

[Dave Cx]

Cindy
Surely the timing is 'as soon as reasonably possible', if you didn't inform your customer as soon as you knew, but instead delayed informing them whilst complying with (your target) 48 hours they would be hard pushed to thank you.
Dave

 

[cpearison]

I was thinking the same thing. We have a 3rd party audit next week for the IATF transition. Our team had a meeting yesterday and it was the general consensus to remove the timing on the process.
~thanks

 

[Alpine]

Hi, long time lurker , my new manager has requested an escalation process/procedure as a result of an incident. He comes from the car industry and used to having this in place. I've never needed one previously (we are non-car manufacturing) however, given recent events, can see the value. Does anyone have something I can have a look at, as an example/start point, so I can develop something that will suit our business and industry needs. Really appreciate anything, anyone is prepared to share. Thanks a bundle

 

[cpearison]

My company is a small privately owned business with some OEM trucking business. Keep it simple is our moto.
Hope this helps.

 

[Alpine]

Thanks so much, we are a dash bigger company, and my colleagues interstate, love writing wordy procedures, so this is more my style and a good start point.

 

[cpearison]

I have more documents and am very willing to share, if you would like, on the product safety process.

 

[Alpine]

That would be very helpful, as previously mentioned, I am not in the car industry and have never worked under this standard before. So anything you or anyone else is comfortable sharing would be most appreciated