Laboratory Requirements (7.6.3.1)

[Bill Ryan - 2007]

Hi gang,

My company is ISO/TS 16949:2002 certified (certifiable?). We are a small die cast/machining house (Aluminum & Zinc). Our foundry alloys our "most requested" aluminum alloy (A380) of which we certify the metal chemistry.

The header of our Certificate of Analysis for Metal states "... is accredited under General Motors GP-10 (QS 9000 Certification) to perform...". I guess my question arises from the notation that accreditation to ISO 17025 would satisfy the requirement in 7.6.3.1 (“but it is not mandatory”). Since we are no longer “QS certified”, but rather “ISO/TS certified”, the clause in the header of the metal certification doesn’t make sense to me, but the clause only states that there be a defined scope included in the QMS documentation and mentions nothing of “accreditation” or verification of the scope (that sentence was a bit longer than I planned!!!).

I have sent e-mails all over my company but they all come back to me with "What do you think it should be?". I have only suggested that we contact our Registrar for clarification, but management doesn't seem to wish to go down that avenue (don't ask me why).

If this makes sense to anyone, I would sure appreciate some ideas'suggestions.

Thank you, in advance, for any help.

Bill

 

[M Greenaway]

Bill

The statement on your certificate looks slightly dodgy. It may give the appearance that the test itself is approved to QS9000. This is slightly misleading as it is the entire QMS that is certified to QS9000.

You can keep your approval logos in your header or footer, but personally I would not make the inference that the test itself is QS9000 approved. I know in the UK that such a statement would be frowned upon by the certification bodies.

BS EN 10204 gives some guidance on inspection certification, dont know if you can get it in the US though.