Who should do NAFTA Certificates of Origin?

R

Red Bead

I'm interested in seeing where the community thinks that the generation of NAFTA certificates of origin belongs. Right now, if the request has the word "certificate" in it, it seems to find its way to me (Quality). I personally think this would be a Shipping (and therefore Operations) function, but perhaps I'm off-base. What do the rest of you think?
 

Randy

Super Moderator
Re: Who should do NAFTA certs?

What are you certifying to begin with?

If it was me, I think that I'd find the specific requirement and obtain the cert according to what it says.

In the absence of a specific requirement stating the cert must be generated thus-and-so it may be open how to do it.
 
R

Red Bead

Re: Who should do NAFTA certs?

To clarify: A customer wants us to generate a blanket NAFTA Certificate of Origin for a number of our goods. The question is whether it's the Quality department's job to issue them or Shipping's.
 

SteelMaiden

Super Moderator
Trusted Information Resource
Re: Who should do NAFTA certs?

I know about that whole certs=SteelMaiden thing! I got a call just the other day from one of our sales persons, I told them I didn't have a clue what they were talking about, but it sounded legal so maybe they should call the controller (who is also a lawyer). Nobody ever called me back and told me I was a slacker, so they musta figured it out.:notme:
 

Randy

Super Moderator
Re: Who should do NAFTA certs?

That's a good question Red Bead....

If it doesn't matter to your customer then I'd say to let the department that would probably have better credibility and capability do it.
 

Wes Bucey

Prophet of Profit
Re: Who should do NAFTA certs?

The NAFTA certs have little to do with quality, but everything to do with origin of materials and components used in making a product. In most cases, the final document needs to be a collaboration of Purchasing and Operations to determine which products (if multiple sources are involved) are actually used in the specific products which are the subject of certs.

When I was filling out these documents, we were getting non-ferrous materials from mills located around the world and we had to maintain traceability of which lot of nearly identical material from different countries of origin went into which products we were shipping which required NAFTA documentation. The worst part was the contract requirements did not have a requirement for country of origin, just for NAFTA certificates - :frust:

The next important factor is what percentage of the finished product is comprised of subject material - often a question for engineer geeks to calculate!
 
Q

quality1

Our Import/Export Manager would take care of all the questions and requirements. If required, customer Service Dept. fills out the NAFTA form and sends it to our Shipping dept. with the order. QA is not involved.:D
 
P

Pudge 72

I had Materials Management and Customer Service fill these out for a customer with a new part about 3 weeks ago - very small portion of this could even be applicable to QA let alone having to fill out the whole thing.
 

Scott Catron

True Artisan
Super Moderator
As well as being the QA manager, I'm also the 'regulatory guy' when it comes to product-related issues (EPA pesticide registrations, DOT Hazmat shipping descriptions, NSF/ANSI 60, DEA), so I take care of the NAFTA certs also.

If you have access to the information required, there's no reason you can't do them. The biggest headache is figuring out the HS Tariff number. There's a 3063-page document available at http://www.usitc.gov/tata/index.htm with the codes.
 

ScottK

Not out of the crisis
Leader
Super Moderator
I'm tacking a question on to this thread...

I don't care what department in the company does the Certificate of Origin - if I have to do it I will, no biggie.

The question is if the end user purchases parts from a distributor and never directly from the manufacturer who is responsible for doing the Certificate of Origin? The manufacturer or distributor?
 
Top Bottom