IATF 16949 Product Safety

[boxer12]

Just today....I completed a 2-day training course for "Product Safety Officer". This requirement is mandatory for suppliers to VW and BMW, and soon Mercedes (based on VDA system). This was a very unsettling course, as the main goal is to identify risks and liabilities regarding the products you make. Our society is litigation-crazy, and greedy....and many people are just looking for any reason to take a company to court and get a bunch of money.

Example: Some years ago I worked at a top level brake manufacturer. Once at a car cruise I saw someone with what appeared to be our brake calipers on their car - but I could tell that we didn't make them. I looked closer and saw that there were simply plastic covers over the original calipers with our Logo on them. I found these plastic covers for sale on the internet from sellers in China (no surprise). Well these plastic covers didn't allow the stock breaks to ventilate - so they overheated, this eventually caused an accident. The stupid driver hired a lawyer and filed a suit against our company. This was totally absurd, but the case went to court and our company had to pay. Our company was charged to be "at fault" because they didn't try to stop the counterfeit parts from being manufactured, nor did they issue any kind of public warning about these fake calipers.

NOTE: These lawyers will go where the money is. Even though our company didn't have anything to do with these fake caliper covers, we were legally accessible (in the USA) and had more money than some nut in China making these fakes. So - we all need to realize that this world isn't fair. We also need to realize that ambulance-chasing lawyers will take on any case if they think they can make a buck.

I have been in the automotive supplier sector for over 35 years, my current role is quality manager - I was "volunteered" to take on the role of Product Safety Representative by management. But what I learned today has me considering a different line of work.

 

[Marc]

As a thought about lawyers - It's also the judges that go along with garbage complaints. Believe me - I know.

 

[lmamao]

I had a similar problem, our product is not consider a safety related product by our customer, the way that I dealt with it is by mentioning in the quality manual by saying that our customer has not classified out product as ...., our legal department constantly reviews requirements, etc., if any product safety requirement should arise it would be documented in the FMEA and PCP.

The auditor didn't say or ask anything, let me just add that we are remanufactures.

 

[AndyN]

Hello,

I am new at creating documents and Iam very lost. We are being audited to the new standard and we do not have a Product Safety procedure written. Because of the nature of our business, we do not have any products that fall in this category at the moment. Does anyone have a procedure we could use and modify?
:
Best,
JJ

You don't need another procedure. You already (should) have plenty of existing procedures which can be modified to suit. The first place you should determine if the product is safety related is: in preparing a quote. Most organizations wouldn't like to unknowingly enter into an arrangement with a client not knowing if the product is safety-related. So, why not simple add a question to your quoting checklist (or whatever) and ask the customer to confirm.

The rest is handled through DFMEA and PFMEA which are part of APQP and an existing procedure. Job done.