IATF 16949 News Six month extension on all valid IATF 16949 certs

[brandieb1230]

I contacted my certification body because I read in the COVID IATF guide that The IATF has approved a 6 month extension. They responded back that they are allowing a postponement of 180 days for surveillance audit but are not extending certs.

I think they would need to extend my cert based on this, what are your thoughts?

 

[Sidney Vianna]

what are your thoughts?

Who, exactly, did you contact? An auditor? A sales person? An admin clerk? How did they respond to you? Verbally over the phone? An email?

It might be a case of a semi-informed person within the CB, giving you an incorrect answer for partial ignorance. I seriously doubt any IATF approved CB would not automatically grant this "mandated" extension.

 

[brandieb1230]

Who, exactly, did you contact? An auditor? A sales person? An admin clerk? How did they respond to you? Verbally over the phone? An email?

It might be a case of a semi-informed person within the CB, giving you an incorrect answer for partial ignorance. I seriously doubt any IATF approved CB would not automatically grant this "mandated" extension.

HI Sidney! Thanks for your response. I contacted our scheduler through email. I emailed her back asking her if what they were doing contradicted the IATF global extension of 6 months. I told her it had nothing to do with the surveillance audit this year but the lifetime of the cert. Awaiting response. I just wanted to make sure that I was on the right track, our cert that ends in August 2021 should now end in February 2022.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

I contacted our scheduler through email.

OK. Now, the response is easier to understand. What does a scheduler do? Schedules. So, her answer was constrained to what her role is. The certificate validity extension has to be authorized by someone higher in the CB organization, typically a technical review manager.

Good luck.

 

[brandieb1230]

OK. Now, the response is easier to understand. What does a scheduler do? Schedules. So, her answer was constrained to what her role is. The certificate validity extension has to be authorized by someone higher in the CB organization, typically a technical review manager.

Good luck.

Thank you. She is my only contact point- I will email again and ask her to contact someone in their organization like a technical review manager.

 

[Howard Atkins]

Thank you. She is my only contact point- I will email again and ask her to contact someone in their organization like a technical review manager.

As an auditor the schedulers tend to be the bottom of the pile and have no idea of the real world

 

[Sidney Vianna]

I think some CB's have instituted a single point of contact with the registrants; in some cases, the schedulers. This case shows, however, that some responses are inadequate. In fairness, the email offered to answer any additional questions.

 

[brandieb1230]

I heard back from the certification body- "Megan" our scheduler contacted her manager with the title of Client services manager and she gave this feedback:


We are not sending updated certificates for IATF, as the extensions are not to the expiry dates but to the windows.

You could request an updated certificate but there would be no actual updates on it.



Am I completely off base with the understanding that the certificate is also extended 6 months? I feel like I am being looked at like I have 2 heads..

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Am I completely off base with the understanding that the certificate is also extended 6 months? I feel like I am being looked at like I have 2 heads..

The IATF document you copied above is pretty clear. The validity of any (in good standing) certificate is AUTOMATICALLY extended by 6 months, but there is no mandate for the CB to re-issue a certificate just for that. In case a certificate gets re-issued for another reason, e.g., a scope extension, then the revised certificate should reflect the additional 6-month extension.

 

[brandieb1230]

The IATF document you copied above is pretty clear. The validity of any (in good standing) certificate is AUTOMATICALLY extended by 6 months, but there is no mandate for the CB to re-issue a certificate just for that. In case a certificate gets re-issued for another reason, e.g., a scope extension, then the revised certificate should reflect the additional 6-month extension.

Thank you. I will continue to fight this. I was asking for confirmation of expiration date as we received information from FCA and Ford asking us to update the new date in their system. I figured I would confirm to ensure that we had the same date- I never assumed it would be this much of a hassle..