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The Right Approach: International Automotive Task Force (IATF) 16949 Standard, Explained

Introduction

If you are building for the automotive industry (or want to be), you will eventually need to be certified to the IATF16949 standard. It is extremely important to understand the requirements, which can often be daunting and confusing.

Degree of Difficulty

In terms of quality management systems, here is my ranking of the international standards as measured by requirements and the level of discipline required to meet them. In order of increasing degree of difficulty: ISO9001, ISO13485, AS9100, IATF 16949. What follows is an outline of some of the major requirements that are over and above what ISO requires.

Customer-Specific Requirements

This requirement specifically addresses the need to evaluate your customer-specific requirements and include them where applicable in the quality management system. This means that a process is needed to evaluate each customer’s “customer-specific requirements” and integrate them into your QMS.

Product Safety

These are enhanced requirements that require a process for proactive awareness and mitigation of current and emerging product and process safety issues facing the automotive industry. This includes a focus on statutory and regulatory requirements to identify and control product safety-related characteristics during design (if applicable) and manufacturing including defining responsibilities, escalation processes, reaction plans.

To read the full version of this column which appeared in the April 2018 issue of PCB007 Magazine, click here.