ISO/TS 16949, the automotive industry’s most widely applied international standard for quality, will be replaced by IATF 16949.
The new certification, developed by Automotive Industry Action Group members, changes the requirements of quality management systems for all automotive OEMs and suppliers in the industry.
It provides for an interdisciplinary approach focused on risk management, customer satisfaction, leadership, and process.
Benefits of Meeting Standards: Risk Management and Adaptability
IATF 16949 is aimed to help quality engineers and procurement managers control risk throughout the supply chain and maintain flexibility in dynamic environments, providing you and your staff with confidence in your product. It is also designed for companies to better handle change, thereby avoiding unexpected situations and even unplanned costs.
What’s Changing?
More documentation. One of the most important changes from ISO to IATF is the requirement of more documentation and documented evidence, including but not limited to:
- – Ensuring that suppliers conform to statutory and regulatory requirements while continuing to implement and improve their quality management systems.
- – Continuous review of engineering standards and specification changes across product lines.
- – Documentation of your supplier selection process to assess risks and maintain product quality conforming to customer specifications.
- – Standardization of work instructions from product verification at start up to in-process checks and shutdown verification.
- – Documented risk assessment, analysis and mitigation at all levels of the organization. (throughout the organization at all levels of production).
Inclusion of customer-specific requirements. While ISO/TS 16949 focused on the organization’s requirements, IATF 16949 will include customer specifications and requirements in their audit to determine that the company is meeting them.
Accountability and safety. The quality management system now mandates that manufacturers implement Corporate Responsibility policies, including those for anti-bribery, codes of conduct, and ethics escalation policies.
Risk awareness and analysis. Risk management should be incorporated throughout multiple levels of business systems, including CAPA and FMEA. All employees must be made aware of the risks that non-conformity to these standards has on the brand and its customers.
Recommendations to Prepare for Change
Your organization should develop a step-by-step plan to handle this transition.
- Thoroughly review your own processes, including the context of your organization, (operation), all interested parties and expectations, and the scope of your current quality management system.
- Find ways to demonstrate leadership, look at risks and opportunities from a fresh perspective, and re-contextualize the goals of your QMS within the mission and strategic direction of the
- Reconsider your current documentation processes, refine your design and development strategies, and re-evaluate QMS in this new context. Be realistic about the scale of these efforts.
- Create a timetable with expectations of how long each step of the process will take.
Changes to meet new IATF requirements are already underway at ESI. If you have any questions about the process or the new standards, feel free to reach out — our Quality Control team is happy to help.
ESI is IATF Certified
Learn more about how ESI applies quality standards to automotive parts on our automotive industry page, or download our IATF 16949:2016 certificate for your records.
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