Re: Supplier Development - The TS 16949 Requirements
vanputten said:
Hello Hjilling:
I am looking forward to your next posting. I need help in this area too.
I would love to learn about different angles to take, And I would like to learn more about how to determine applicability of 7.4.1.2 and 7.6.3.
We have over 5,000 part numbers. We don't build to customer specs or prints. Our automotive cusotmers buy parts from our catalog. Therefore, any one of our 5,000 parts could become an "automotive part." Becasue of this, we apply TS 16949 requirements to everything.
This includes suppliers, subcontractors, etc.
Thank you,
Dirk
The other main angle is a little less clear. In fact, I look forward to input from other 3rd party auditors as to whether you agree. It would be interesting to know whether I am alone in this interpretation. But, it might provide an answer in this instance.
When the TS standard first came out, the IAOB made quite a point about being different. This was NOT QS-9000 and by golly, the rules were going to be different, for sure! There was a viewpoint on the part of the Big 3 that QS had failed to deliver. Well, it hardly failed to deliver when it helped the majority of suppliers get down to ppms better than 50, and delivery near 100%. It certainly worked. But TS was the next step in managing for improvement.
So, the point is, things were going to be different. One of the things that would change was the applicability would be much tighter. Non-automotive suppliers could not be certified to TS. In QS, many non-automotives slipped in. So, to enforce this narrow window, definitions would be defined narrowly defined. Scopes would be strictly enforced.
Customers were defined as OE's. Tier 1 suppliers were now called Organizations, and were defined as suppliers to the OE customers. Tier 2's were then defined as "suppliers to Organizations." This logic was pretty clear, and a logical extension from QS practices.
In keeping with the restricted club perspective, they really didn't envision tier 2s as going to TS. ISO 9001 would be adequate. They were reducing the supply chain, and didn't want to fool with smaller companies. Let the tier 1's deal with them.
So, when you got to tier 3 and 4, it generally became weaker. If a "Supplier" was a tier 2, then the requirement to develop "Suppliers" in cl 7.4 was essentially directed at the tier 2 level. In other words, there was
no mention of sub-suppliers below the [tier 2] Supplier level.
Thus, a good argument could be made back then that 7.4 did not particularly apply to a tier 3 sub-supplier, unless specifically required. In fact, back in QS, there was actually some interpretation or expanation to that effect (which led me to think this way).
However, there is a wrinkle. For some reason, the definitions began to soften. Delphi and Visteon wanted to be called customers too. They wanted their customer specific requirements to be audited as well. Then other big tier 1's said they wanted to be called customers too.
Now, the official IAOB point of view is a customer can be at any level of the suppliy chain. In their unique fashion, they replaced the clear definitions, without explaining the impact on audits, and things like the 7.4 requirements. If a customer can be at any level, then is a supplier at any level? Does this now include tier 3 and 4?
Originally, it didn't. Now it is not clear. So, Dirk, it is an intereting angle, but may not be accepted by all customers or all auditors. But, it is angle that might hold your solution. But I would get some input from your CB and key customers.
Since this can be argued, I would welcome the input from other 3rd party auditors or registrar folks.
, but would require some feedback from customers.
