Customer-specific QM systems

Establishing customer-specific QM system requirements based on ISO/TS 16949 Contents, documentation and explanatory notes

The standard ISO/TS16949 (Quality management systems – special requirements when applying ISO 9001 for the production of serial products and spare parts in the automotive industry) provides a common starting point for a QM system in the automotive industry supply chain.  ISO/TS 16949 can be applied in concrete terms to the supplier's QM system by additional or expanded customer-specific requirements ("CSR") – cf. ISO/TS 16949, section 0.5).

The requirement of ISO/TS 16949 also demands knowledge of and the implementation of customer-specific requirements in the automotive industry supply chain.

The increasing number of documents and the non-standardised structure of customers' requirements in relation to ISO/TS 16949 set ever more complex demands on the entire supply chain, involving tasks which tie up the suppliers' resources.

Suppliers see themselves confronted by a range of different demands by their customers, covering complex matters such as logistics, warranty and the methods used in the product development process. They are therefore faced with the problem of implementing a uniform operating process with several (customer-specific) variants. This generates extra work and increased costs in the supply chain, without improving the quality of the products to any really significant degree

As a consequence, "CSR“ documents must set out in concrete terms the requirements which are not closely specified in ISO/TS 16949, based on their structure.

The internal structure of this present standard is based on ISO 9001 and ISO/TS 16949 and it may therefore be used throughout the supply chain.

Contents

VDA - Establishing customer-specific QM