QS 9000/TS 16949: Quality system for automotive industry

Courtesy: QS 9000/TS 16949: Quality system for automotive industry

QS9000 was a quality standard developed by a joint effort of the “Big Three” American automakers, General Motors, Chrysler and Ford. It was introduced to the industry in 1994. It has been adopted by several heavy truck manufacturers in the U.S. as well. Essentially all suppliers to the US automakers needed to implement a standard QS9000 system, before its termination.

The standard is divided into three sections with the first section being ISO 9001 plus some automotive requirements.

The second section is titled “Additional Requirements” and contains system requirements that have been adopted by all three automakers – General Motors, Chrysler and Ford.

The third section is titled the “Customer Specific Section” which contains system requirements that are unique to each automotive or truck manufacturer.

On December 14, 2006, all QS9000 certifications were terminated. With QS9000, the middle certification between ISO 9001 and ISO/TS 16949, no longer valid, businesses had a choice between either ISO9001 or TS16949. QS9000 is considered superseded by ISO/TS 16949, now a standard published by IATF, thus renamed IATF 16949:2016 (current version).

IATF 16949:2016 is a technical specification aimed at the development of a quality management system which provides for continual improvement, emphasizing defect prevention and the reduction of variation and waste in the automotive industry supply chain and assembly process. It is based on the ISO 9001 standard and the first edition was published in June 1999 as ISO/TS 16949:1999. IATF 16949:2016 replaced ISO/TS 16949 in October 2016.

The standard was prepared by the International Automotive Task Force (IATF) and the “Technical Committee” of ISO. It harmonises the country-specific regulations of quality management systems.

About 30 percent of the more than 100 existing motorcar manufacturers follow the requirements of the norm but especially the large Asian manufacturers have differentiated and have their own requirements for the quality management systems of their corporate group and their suppliers.

ISO/TS 16949 applies to the design/development, production and, when relevant, installation and servicing of automotive-related products.

The requirements are intended to be applied throughout the supply chain. For the first time vehicle assembly plants will be encouraged to seek ISO/TS 16949 [certification].

Many suppliers (OEMs) were asked by the car manufacturers to build and certify their quality management system according to the rules and regulations of their own country organizations, such as:

• VDA (Germany)
• AIAG (North America)
• AVSQ (Italy)
• FIEV (France)
• SMMT (UK)

But due to this regulation a supplier needed to provide two different certificates for Daimler and Chrysler (VDA 6.1 for Germany and QS 9000 America), even though the supplier delivered only to a single company. These complexities accelerated the need for harmonization.

The process-oriented approach to business processes that is addressed in the ISO 9001:2008 is the base of the standard. It looks at the business processes in a process environment in which there are interactions and interfaces that need to be recognized, mapped and controlled by the quality management system. Additionally the gateways to the exterior (to sub-suppliers, customers and to remote locations) are defined. The Standard distinguishes between customer-oriented processes, supporting processes and management processes. This process-oriented approach is intended to improve the overview of the whole process. This is not an isolated process, but a combination of all interacting business processes which affect the quality performance of a firm.

A key requirement of ISO/TS 16949:2009 is the fulfillment of customer-specific requirements, set up by the automotive manufacturer in addition to the quality management system of their suppliers. This may have decisively contributed to the worldwide recognition of the TS by many manufacturers.