Should The Automotive Industry Continue Ts:16949 And Qs9000 Standards?
In the Big 3 Automakers (Ford, GM, and Chrysler), TS:16949 and the form QS-9000 are a supplier standard that any automotive supplier has to maintain. A Tier one supplier manufactures products sold directly to the Big 3, A Tier 2 supplier sells directly to a Tier 1, Tier 3 sells to Tier 2 and so on (all of which are parts that go into the supply chain process).
The cost to prepare for, and maintain certification is incredibly expensive. In addition, many parts suppliers, in order to obtain a manufacturing contract, had to allocate a majority or all of their manufacturing capacity to the contract. The supplier would be locked into a contract for up to 5 years at a pre-agreed upon price. However, the Big 3 typically had a clause which allowed them to control the price and require price reductions, often going retroactively back several months.
If a parts supplier provided less than standard parts, the supplier would be forced to send workers to the customer to sort and return the parts. The Quality department would then have to set up additional forms that would have to be completed by hourly workers.
Ultimately, I have to wonder, was the cost of implementing TS16949 and QS9000 quality standards throughout the Tier 1-4 suppliers a help or hindrance to the economy? Especially in those areas where automotive supply manufacturing were the primary job opportunities?
In the end these standardized rules are good for everybody. If you got rid of these every OEM would make their own standard which would probably disagree in some places with other OEM’s. Now you would have to spend even more money to follow and maintain maybe 5-10 different ones instead of 1-2.
No supplier sells only to a single or probably even 2 OEM’s. Putting all your eggs in 1 basket is setting yourself up to fail.
I work for a Tier 1 supplier even though they use the same quality standard I still need to have a totally separate reporting structure, documentation, etc for each one. Sometimes they are even different between different divisions of the same company.
You’re slightly missing the point of QS 9000: It was aimed at moving the quality requirements from an inspection department function back to the manufacturing dept, so the parts are designed so they cannot be made out of tolerance, instead of inspected to see if they are in tolerance.
The catch phrase was: You cannot inspect quality into a part, it has to be made that way.
Yes, it is expensive to start with, but the payback is down the road.