TS 16949 Clause 4.2.3.1 Engineering Specifications - Anyone have comments?

[Jgryn]

Anyone else have some comments on this?

"The organizaion shall have a process to assure the timely review, distribution and implementation of all customer engineering standards/specifications and changes based on customer required schedule."

I don't know about you but if the customer has a change to my product or process my only authorization would be a Change Notice from them, not an engineering spec change.

How is everyone handling this?

Cheers,

Jen

 

[ralphsulser]

Anyone else have some comments on this?

"The organizaion shall have a process to assure the timely review, distribution and implementation of all customer engineering standards/specifications and changes based on customer required schedule."

I don't know about you but if the customer has a change to my product or process my only authorization would be a Change Notice from them, not an engineering spec change.

How is everyone handling this?

Cheers,

Jen

Jen, IMO This basically only refers to the "timely review" of your organization, not to exceed 2 weeks, of the change information and an aknowledgement if necessary. Plus a record of when you received it, reviewed it, and distributed it within your organization.
That's my take on this requirement.

 

[howste]

How is everyone handling this?

The process should already be in place. Review of requirements is covered in 7.2.2, distribution of external documents in 4.2.3, and internal communication in 5.5.3.

 

[Jgryn]

Here's a scenario.

Say you have a steering wheel that is in production and fully approved by the customer to their designated product and process approval process.

The design record (drawing) references a customer engineering specification X.X, but does not indicate which revision level of specification.

The customer has all the engineering specifications online and X.X is updated. The change would be something that would require a material, product or cost change. Would you not expect this to trigger a Change Notice by the customer to me so that we could evaluate? Or am I expected to monitor every change and then let the customer know that their spec has been updated in a way that affects our part and we will need to do a change that will require a re-quote and re-ppap?

Jen

 

[Sam]

Here's a scenario.

Say you have a steering wheel that is in production and fully approved by the customer to their designated product and process approval process.

The design record (drawing) references a customer engineering specification X.X, but does not indicate which revision level of specification.

The customer has all the engineering specifications online and X.X is updated. The change would be something that would require a material, product or cost change. Would you not expect this to trigger a Change Notice by the customer to me so that we could evaluate? Or am I expected to monitor every change and then let the customer know that their spec has been updated in a way that affects our part and we will need to do a change that will require a re-quote and re-ppap?

Jen

BINGO, Thats called "meeting your customer expectations". I call it "doing the customers job and not getting paid for it".
But before you make any changes you must submit the formal request for approval.
Sounds bassakwards to me. The fun part is when you call customer purchasing and say you are shutting down production until you get an answer.

 

[p_tww]

Here's a scenario.

Say you have a steering wheel that is in production and fully approved by the customer to their designated product and process approval process.

The design record (drawing) references a customer engineering specification X.X, but does not indicate which revision level of specification.

The customer has all the engineering specifications online and X.X is updated. The change would be something that would require a material, product or cost change. Would you not expect this to trigger a Change Notice by the customer to me so that we could evaluate? Or am I expected to monitor every change and then let the customer know that their spec has been updated in a way that affects our part and we will need to do a change that will require a re-quote and re-ppap?

Jen

Hi,Jen,

since you got online update for customer's engineering specifications, you could not expect customer give you another notifications.
I believe customer will you inform you by email or other means on the specification updates.
what you do is to review customer's engineering specification & its changes within 2 working weeks upon you receiving customer's email.
to evaluate the change impact on the parts, subsystems/system,any document change etc.
You must consider whether new PPAP processes would be required, you can get help on PPAP manua 3rd version in QS-9000 system. If not sure, consult with your customers.

 

[SteelWoman]

JGRYN, we have same situation at our facility - we rarely if ever get tech drawings or such from our customers, just a change notice that can come by fax, phone, email, whatever. When these change notices are received, we have procedures in place to ensure they get "timely review" (within 48 hours). Our procedures about this specifically note that we seldom gets specs, and if we do we send them in with the change order for review and then do not typically retain them, since the changes from them are noted on our shop order system.

 

[Raffy]

Hi,
Currently, we are ISO9001:2000 certified, then the company decides that its time for us to be certified in TS16949, to gather more market opportunities for the company. How are we going to follow the standard in which this clause, in which in our case, we have a HUGE specifications that was not reviewed timely in the last 10 years. How are we going to explain it to the auditor? Do we have to state a provision in our procedure that what we are going to do is to track all engineering specification in the last 12 months and ensure that it is timely review and implemented the changes.
Please advise.
Best regards,
Raffy

 

[antoine.dias]

Hi,
Currently, we are ISO9001:2000 certified, then the company decides that its time for us to be certified in TS16949, to gather more market opportunities for the company. How are we going to follow the standard in which this clause, in which in our case, we have a HUGE specifications that was not reviewed timely in the last 10 years. How are we going to explain it to the auditor? Do we have to state a provision in our procedure that what we are going to do is to track all engineering specification in the last 12 months and ensure that it is timely review and implemented the changes.
Please advise.
Best regards,
Raffy

Raffy,
The intention of item 4.2.3.1 is only requesting a process for the timely review of new or changed specifications.
The running specifications you already have must be kept up-to-date but there is no requirement in 4.2.3.1 to have a timely review (within 2 weeks) for these specs.

Hope this helps and best regards,

Antoine

 

[howste]

I agree with Antoine. As long as all new and updated specs are reviewed within the 2-week period from this time forward, you'll be fine. The auditor has no reason to look back at what you did before you decided to comply with TS 16949.