Can a company get ISO/TS 16949 even if no customer requires it?

Sometimes you need to put yourself in "top management's" shoes. The problem from their perspective is that much of these standards in mind numbing minutia. Throw in some open ended statements and some "aggressive" interpretation and management will stop, and say show me "how does this make us money." Add in the auditor philosophy of "guilty until proven innocent" (yep that's what we where told), and you'll understand management's disdain. Management likes to focus on the big problems. Not whether some stupid form was filled out right.

These standards are too open for interpretation and there is no evaluation as it concerns the performance of the company. Interpretations changes between auditors and such. So there is no consistency. So something that has been working for you company for years, looked at by a pack of auditors, is suddenly "not good enough" according to the new guy. It needs to be more like the legal system (yes, I can't believe I said it either) where the standard is laid out, interpretations are compiled, precedents are established, and most importantly this information is available for public review. Even with the IRS I can get a letter of determination (yep, I brought up the IRS too). Yet the response when you ask you auditor/CB is "we cannot consult."

 

Kind of like I do after dealing with a bunch of non-value added activity "required" by the standard (or at least the auditor who uses the standard for justification).