The International Automotive Task Force (IATF) changed the title of the automotive certification for TS 16949 to IATF 16949 two years ago. To be TS 16949 certified meant you could supply to the automotive industry. The certification is renewed every year as long as you pass an audit from a certified registrar that ensures your quality manual follows all of the IATF guidelines. With the change of the certification title, the IATF also tightened up on how certified facilities operate and process parts. The areas that we focused on during this change was our SWAT (strength, weakness, opportunities, threats) analysis, verification of material certificates by management, and document control. Document control has been a problem and because there are so many documents we feel it will continue to be a problem. During an audit this large there are just too many documents to go through to ensure all are in proper order.

Gent Machine has been fortunate to hold this certification for almost a decade now. The original push to get certified was done in order to supply parts to a tier 2 supplier. We were initially certified as a satellite to that tier 2 supplier and then a couple years later we used the same consultant to develop our own quality manual. Once the quality manual was in place we just needed to make sure the procedures were executed. Since then we have followed through on the execution, some years better than others, but we have maintained our IATF 16949 certification.

While applying for the certification for IATF, we also applied for the ISO 9001 certification. There is a lot of overlap between the two certifications but IATF takes the procedures further and requires more. However, if you pass the IATF audit, you will likely be awarded an ISO certificate as well.