ISO/TS 16949 CBs & Auditors not following up on the schedules

[Golfman25]

The rules are set by the iatf. Not sure they would care what your contract said. I assume they would expect your audit to comply with the rules regardless of the contract. You cb probably made a mistake. Who pays? I guess that's what you'll figure out, but it may be a pia to change cb at this point. Good luck

 

[Crimpshrine13]

The rules are set by the iatf. Not sure they would care what your contract said. I assume they would expect your audit to comply with the rules regardless of the contract. You cb probably made a mistake. Who pays? I guess that's what you'll figure out, but it may be a pia to change cb at this point. Good luck

Yes, I understand it, but if so, aren't they supposed to be doing the remote location audit regardless of how much we pay? Maybe they should've stated that they made an error in the contract that they needed to revisit the remote location for the extension audit?

 

[howste]

The CB should only charge you for more time if your organization makes changes in scope or headcount that increase the time.

The TS Rules require that a remote location that does design has to be audited annually at a minimum. If this is the case, then the location must be audited. IMO if they misquoted the audit time or locations to be audited, and you haven't made changes, then you should hold them to the contract even if they have to spend more time there.

... clients with product design responsibility shall have their design function(s), on site or remote, audited at least once within each consecutive twelve (12) month period.

 

[Crimpshrine13]

The CB should only charge you for more time if your organization makes changes in scope or headcount that increase the time.

The TS Rules require that a remote location that does design has to be audited annually at a minimum. If this is the case, then the location must be audited. IMO if they misquoted the audit time or locations to be audited, and you haven't made changes, then you should hold them to the contract even if they have to spend more time there.

There hasn't been any changes to our scope or employee count since the time when the CB quoted us, in which I had questioned them at that time why there was no 3rd year's remote location audit since we had process design there. They said that they did not have to revisit in the 3rd year (I don't know why they said so), but they came back at me this year and they said that they needed to go to the remote location this year (3rd year). Because it was contrary to what they had said last year and was not on contract, I said that was not what they told me last year and I even questioned them last year why they did not include the remote location audit for the 3rd year. Then, they are now telling me that they are not doing the remote location audit this year but they have to spend additional day at our facility to cover the hours required? We only have 11 people at our facility and 2.5 days for surveillance audit is not required. It's definitely 1.5 days at our location and 1 day at the remote site, but like you said, since they did not quote us for the remote site in the 3rd year, they should eat the loss but must do the audit there is what I think.

Each time they come back to me with different answers to the same matter and it just seems to me that their technical team is incompetent determining what they are supposed to be doing. I am already considering changing CB - it may not be possible this year do to because of the date we need to complete the surveillance audit, but I'm tired of them telling me different things each time regarding the same subject at the last minute. I just wonder how they maintain their accreditation to IATF for auditing ISO/TS 16949 with this type of technical team. I don't think there's any "gray zone" about the requirement of remote location audit for process design, but they can't determine what needs to be done every year.

 

[howste]

...we had process design...

Please clarify if this is design of product or design of manufacturing processes. This may be a point of confusion with them. Only design of product would require the annual visit at the remote support location.

 

[Crimpshrine13]

Please clarify if this is design of product or design of manufacturing processes. This may be a point of confusion with them. Only design of product would require the annual visit at the remote support location.

It is the manufacturing process design. Product design owner is the customer (OEM). Our parent company only creates tooling design for the manufacturing process. If what you say is true, it still contradicts their contract because if they do not have to revisit the remote location this year, they still shouldn't have to add additional day at our main location. What the CB sounds like is that they are trying to compensate the hours they must audit for the remote location for the main facility because the remote location audit was not in the contract. Also, this scope should not be any confusion to them as this has been stated numbers of times since 2014 when their auditor first mentioned about the remote location audit for the process design (this was stated both verbally and also in writing when revision to the existing contract was made last year and their survey form had been used for them to quote). My understanding is that if the remote location audit is involving design, it must be audited each year. If the remote location audit is involving only like sales or service, it does not have to be audited each year. Nevertheless, they shouldn't be changing their position each year (or each time they say something) for the rules that had not changed and for the scope that had not changed.

 

[QualitySpirit]

Hello, Tool design is definitely NOT subject to annual audit requirement.

However the total manday is calculated from total number of employees.
CB can not change the total manday. If they decide not to distribute a portion of the total manday to audit Remote location then they have to spend the whole total manday with you manufacturing site e.g. the manday previously allocated to audit remote location has to be added back to your site. They are doing correctly.

If you want them to audit you remote location and maintain original plan.
You may show them that your manufacturing site seems to have been impacted from the performance of the tool design support function.
Rules require CB to audit Remote location based on performance seen at site.
You may show how you have trouble in production with tooling, then I think CB is obliged to go to audit remote location.

 

[howste]

How many people are doing work for your site at the remote support location (RSL)? According to my calculations, if you were a standalone site with only 11 people and no RSL, your annual periodic audit would be 1.5 days. With the RSL, you would have 2.0 days total for both if they have 1 to 7 employees at the RSL. There would have to be 8 or more employees doing work supporting your site at the RSL for the CB to justify 2.5 days at an annual surveillance audit.

 

[Crimpshrine13]

How many people are doing work for your site at the remote support location (RSL)? According to my calculations, if you were a standalone site with only 11 people and no RSL, your annual periodic audit would be 1.5 days. With the RSL, you would have 2.0 days total for both if they have 1 to 7 employees at the RSL. There would have to be 8 or more employees doing work supporting your site at the RSL for the CB to justify 2.5 days at an annual surveillance audit.

The bad thing about this is that we have only 11 (last year was 13) here, and the remote location has 79 (this is also the last year's count), but this 79 people is including the people in the factory who have nothing to do with the tool design. The people who are being audited is really less than 10% of the remote location (R&D department, QA department, management); however, Rules for achieving and maintaining IATF recognition does not calculate the remote location head count that way and they go by the percentage of manufacturing location vs. remote location head count. So, yes, you are right about the audit man-days.

In our case, it is only one manufacturing location that is being audited for ISO/TS 16949 (100% of manufacturing location) plus the remote location of 79 people, so technically, according to that book, it is 13+79=92 = 5.5 stage 2 audit days (divided by 2 surveillance audits in 3-year cycle with 15% reduction will be 2.33 surveillance audit days, rounded to closest 0.5 is 2.5 surveillance audit days) - which I don't necessarily agree with this calculation method in a case like ours (I hate when they do "one size fits all" method), but we have no choice because the rule is the rule.

I needed to confirm to make sure that this is done right, so thank you for your input.

 

[Crimpshrine13]

Hello, Tool design is definitely NOT subject to annual audit requirement.

However the total manday is calculated from total number of employees.
CB can not change the total manday. If they decide not to distribute a portion of the total manday to audit Remote location then they have to spend the whole total manday with you manufacturing site e.g. the manday previously allocated to audit remote location has to be added back to your site. They are doing correctly.

If you want them to audit you remote location and maintain original plan.
You may show them that your manufacturing site seems to have been impacted from the performance of the tool design support function.
Rules require CB to audit Remote location based on performance seen at site.
You may show how you have trouble in production with tooling, then I think CB is obliged to go to audit remote location.

Thank you for your clarification. I needed others to confirm the interpretation. We've had numbers of issues with current CB coming back to us with different information each time where we started to question their technical knowledge of the requirement.