As your company prepares to pursue IATF 16949:2016 certification, an IATF 16949 audit checklist can be a powerful tool to help ensure you're ready for the external audit that certification requires. Doing everything you can before the external audit will help ensure a successful certification process. This article will review IATF 16949 basics and provide the information you need to create an IATF 16949:2016 audit checklist.
IATF 16949:2016, formerly called ISO/TS 16949, is the quality management system standard for the automotive industry in the United States and Europe. The International Automotive Task Force (IATF) oversees the quality standard.
IATF requirements mirror ISO 9001:2015, the global standard for quality management systems, with additional provisions based on feedback from automotive industry stakeholders, like AIAG members. The IATF standard also includes requirements specifically developed for each major car manufacturer.
Designed to cultivate improved quality and safety throughout the automotive supply chain, IATF 16949 is generally considered table stakes for today's automotive suppliers. Beyond securing entrance into the automotive industry, IATF 16949:2016 certification provides additional benefits, such as:
Like ISO 9001, IATF 16949:2016 includes 10 sections. The first three deal with scope, references and definitions, while the last seven sections outline the actual standard. Those sections cover:
A thorough internal audit checklist for IATF 16949 will touch on each section.
An automotive audit is a complicated process with many moving parts. An IATF 16949 audit checklist, also sometimes called an ISO/TS 16949 process audit checklist, helps you keep track of parts as you perform your internal audit.
You can use the list to look for gaps in compliance and measure progress toward overall improvement in system performance. The checklist can help determine if your quality management system promotes continuous quality improvement, defect prevention and waste reduction in your supply chain.
It's easy to go off the rails with an IATF 16949 audit checklist. But a good way to manage the list is to create a spreadsheet with four columns:
Using a simple outline like this will give you the flexibility you need to deliver comprehensive internal audit results in a timely manner. Maintaining accountability, performing a thorough risk assessment and confirming product quality should be the results of employing a good internal audit checklist for IATF 16949.
Preparing an IATF 16949 audit checklist is just one step in the process of performing regular audits. To complete a thorough internal audit, you need to:
Once this process is complete, you should be ready for your external IATF 16949 certification audit.
Now that you understand how to create an IATF 16949 audit checklist, you're ready to proceed with the audit process. Smithers Quality Assessments is one of only a few United States-based auditing certification bodies approved by the IATF to certify companies to the IATF 16949:2016 standard. Contact us today to put our IATF 16949 certification and audit expertise to work for you.
