ISO 9001 or TS16949?

With the changes to ISO 9001 we were directed by upper mgmt to review the new standard and TS and make a recommendation on which we to go. We have no customers that require TS. In our company there are plants registered to both standards (though no one is quite sure why as we have no customers that required TS)

Our recommendation, based on our gap analysis, was to stay with ISO 9001. Upper management still wants us to continue our review.
Understanding that TS is also undergoing revision and (to my knowledge) no date has been set for release of the new version are registrars OK with starting the registration process to a standard that when the registration process is complete will not be the same?
I am struggling with why would we start changing out system to match a standard that is changing...

 

IMO Chris, I would recommend staying with the ISO 9001 since you are not required by any of your customers to become TS. This will allow you to focus on the new ISO 9001: 2015 standard and not muddy up the water with TS.

 

Is it possible to just stay in ISO9001:2015 and commit to meet CSR? If an OEM requires TS16949 certification, there's no choice but to comply.

 

We have no requirement to move to TS...hence my frustration with upper management...

Looking at moving to a standard under revision seems to be a very odd thing to do.

What we recommended was to re-certify to ISO (Audit is in Oct) and then when the new revision of TS is released we can investigate at that point. Out ISO cert (under the 2008 version) would be valid until 2018 ..so we have couple of years to modify our system to meet ISO 9001 2015 and perhaps TS if we choose.

 

The question is, do you have any automotive business? If you do not manufacture parts for production or service, I doubt you will be able to go TS. As I recall, if you do go TS you will have 6 months to obtain automotive production or service parts in order to keep TS.

 

We supply parts to Honda and Harley..neither require TS...
What is odd is world-wide about 2/3 of our plants ARE TS..and none have customers that require it.

 

Mr.Chris, Hi!! this is Rajagopal from Bangalore. In future if you have a Customer who needs a TS what would you do? My idea is have a TS whether you have a customer right now or not, but you may be sub supplier or a Tier 2 company who require a TS.
Thanks Chris.

 

ISO TS certification has a cost. To obtain it and then to maintain it.
If you go towards automotive business and customers ask for that, then you should evaluate if pursue it.
This is a strategic decision at management review level.
As a second choice you could evaluate a period of mere compliance towards ISO TS without being certificated. In any case it is
always required a long journey to have the organization accustomed to ISO TS quality tools and additional requirements with respect to ISO 9001.
Also in this case it is required management decision to address resource in this project.
Hope this helps to the discussion.

 

I echo Qusys' response to you. I advise my company to develop a very mature ISO9001:2015 based quality system and and do the Core Tools and have them approved by your OEM customer. TS16949 is a very disciplined standard and is hard to maintain.

 

I am

I am in the same situation as you. It was decided that this facility be TS16949 certified in anticipation of future OEM business and as a back-up supply point to our existing TS certified plant. My recommendation is to have an awareness TS training followed by the gap analysis. Appreciate any feedback.

 

We have done all that...
Our Japanese president has decided..for now we will stay with ISO...but will re-evaluate in a next year or two..

 

Thank you for the advice

I love the Japanese management. They do mandate full compliance to customer specific requirements. We have a Japanese customer that have their own supplier manual. The manual seems to mirror the TS standard. So it is not a problem for us to comply with this demand because we are already TS certified for the big 3.