QS/TE, in my opinion, is really meant for machinery suppliers. It can be applied to anyone who makes equipment or tooling, such as fixtures, dies, molds, perishable tooling, etc., but the heart of it is reliability and maintainability. It works best for assembly line equipment where you can track (if your customer pays attention to the data) breakdowns and maintenance issues. Since it is a modification to QS, there are several requirements that don't really work in a tooling environment that were not removed. Hopefully they will do a better job if there is a TE version of 16949.
ISO 17025 (a revision to Guide 25) is specifically for testing and calibration labs. There are many similarities to ISO 9000 and QS, such as document control, internal audits, management review, etc., but it is specifically geared towards labs. 17025 requires that you know how accurate your calibration or tests are. It also has more rigid record control. This is just the 30 second overview. I'm sure you can find more information by searching the cove and also at
www.a2la.org.
QS companies are required to use 17025 certified labs for calibration and testing. If you are calibrating for the automotive world, you may be losing customers. I had a scale calibration company start losing customers because they dragged their feet on getting the 17025 cert and their customers started getting written up for minor nonconformances on QS survellance audits.
A few questions and I may be able to give you some more guidance.
Who is telling you that you must go TE?
What type of test equipment do you make?
Is it automotive related?
I did work with one company that was making crash test measurement equipment which was placed in the vehicle during the test. It was tough to do the R&M since they were intentionally crashing the equipment, plus it was not always mounted in the same location.
I would only suggest QS/TE if a customer is mandating it. A combination of ISO 9001: 2000 and ISO 17025 would probably be much more benificial for you and your customers.
Hope this helps,
Tom
