Process Records requirements for TS16949 standard

[mhanny75]

Hi everyone,

We are doing the preparation towards TS16949 certification and our consultant said we need to set a goal in each of our process like Quotation issuance, Customer satisfaction process, etc. And we need to keep at least 1 year record for these processes. The consultant is Chinese and with the limited knowledge of our staffs in TS standards, I wonder if there is any translation gap that we do not understand because we have a records in our monthly Quality reports which we used for ISO9001 and I suggested the consultant to update this to cover each process but seems that he is talking about a different kind of records keeping.

I just want to ask any inputs you can give on what kind of process records does TS16949 require and if there is any sample/file that you can share, would be much appreciated.

Thank you so much!

Sincerely,
Mhanny
Hong Kong

 

[Priss80]

Re: Process records for TS16949 standards

Your monthly quality report is a minimum you meet TS. Your company should have departmental goal for each department, the TS is actually require data monitoring for each department goal. You may define among each department head to define goal and start to monitor. TS require at least 1 year data for certification. The monitoring should be reviewed during management meeting and corrective action need to be record for out of target. Others process records would be the manufacturing parameter record/ inspection record/ internal audit record, etc...

 

[mhanny75]

Re: Process records for TS16949 standards

Hi, thank you for that helpful tips. We should have those records in each department but need to be sorted as we only use product Quality related performance that meets ISO9001 in our monitoring sheets. Are the target of each department will be based on the decision by the organization? With regards to the process parameters we do it under in-process inspections plus the layered audit.

 

[Jen Kirley]

Yes, the organization decides and sets performance targets for processes.

The intent of the requirement was to recognize that support processes also should be effective in order to help facilitate good product for the customer, and to help minimize costs from waste including time.

Examples can be: on-time performance of planned maintenance, cycle time in controlled document approvals, time lapsed to initially respond to customer inquiry.

The idea is to give process users an ability to know if and when their process is going well or not.

 

[Golfman25]

Under TS each one of your processes is supposed to have a metric. That metric is measured on a regular basis, ie; monthly, quarterly, etc. Now here is the key. You say you have several metrics as part of your monthly quality reports. You should definitely try to link those to your processes. No reason to create new metrics if you don't have to.

 

[Helmut Jilling]

Hi everyone,

We are doing the preparation towards TS16949 certification and our consultant said we need to set a goal in each of our process like Quotation issuance, Customer satisfaction process, etc. And we need to keep at least 1 year record for these processes. The consultant is Chinese and with the limited knowledge of our staffs in TS standards, I wonder if there is any translation gap that we do not understand because we have a records in our monthly Quality reports which we used for ISO9001 and I suggested the consultant to update this to cover each process but seems that he is talking about a different kind of records keeping.

I just want to ask any inputs you can give on what kind of process records does TS16949 require and if there is any sample/file that you can share, would be much appreciated.

Thank you so much!

Sincerely,
Mhanny
Hong Kong

I am both a consultant and an auditor, so I see both sides....I will be the first to remind you to read the standard, especially when you are not sure if the consultant's guidance is quite correct. Always know the requirements, even when you have a good consultant...


Now, the sections that are relevant to this topic are at cl 4.1, cl 5.6, and Cl 8.2.3. Basically those three passages discuss that you need to monitor the performance of your processes. You need to KNOW how effective they are, so you can make adjustments if they are not effective, or not meeting objectives, or not performing well......


It is not required to "measure" each process, because these clauses talk about "monitoring or measuring...'where applicable.'" In other words, we want to track how our processes and support processes are performing, but the standard give us some flexibility in how to go about that. For some we want a numerical metric. For some others, just a general monitor of factors might be sufficient. For example, I monitor a general sense of how my airline is performing without necessarily having to make a specific metric on them.


The standard also does not say you have to make a target or objective for every metric....it is common, and some companies want to....but it is not specifically required....so take a breath....read these clauses, and re formulate your approach in a way that is beneficial to you.

 

[mhanny75]

Thank you all for your educated inputs. Appreciate it.