IATF 16949 : International Automotive Task Force

 IATF 16949 is a quality standard for automobile industries. This standard is used to maintain the quality of parts used in an automobile. To give your product to automobile industries your company should be certified with IATF16949. To supply product to automobile industries this certificate is compulsory. Exact meaning of automobile here is the vehicles that run on road or they are made to run on the roads, tractors, Earth movers and trains are not include in automobile. IATF is modified by group of OEMs and technical committee of ISO. It was developed to provide best quality product to the customer and also include specific requirements of the customer and focus on continuous improvement in all phase of manufacturing cycle even in supply chain management.

Full form of IATF is International Automotive Task Force.

 Task force is group of OEMs, that govern IATF. IATF members include the following vehicle manufacturers: BMW Group, Daimler AG, Ford Motor Company, Geely Group, General Motors, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) Limited, Renault Group, Stellantis (ex FCA), Stellantis (ex PSA), Volkswagen AG and their respective National Automotive Industry Associations – AIAG (U.S.), ANFIA (Italy), FIEV (France), SMMT (U.K.) and VDA (Germany).

IATF 16949 is based on quality management standard ISO:19001. Before year 2016 IATF 16949 was known as ISO/TS16949

IATF focus mainly on following points:

• CSR(Customer Specific Requirement) 
• Continuous improvement.
• Product safety
• Risk management and contingency planning
• Requirements for embedded software
• Change and warranty management
• Management of sub-tier suppliers

In IATF 16949 we have 10 clauses:

1. Scope
2. Normative and informative reference
3. Terms and definitions
4. Context of organization
5. Leadership
6. Planning
7. Support
8. Operation
9. Performance evaluation
10. Improvement

First three Clauses are related to the discription of the company and next seven clauses related to the exact requirement of the standard. All the standard of ISO are now define same as IATF, ISO standards also include 10 Clauses.

Benefits of IATF certificate:

1. Main benefit of IATF certificate is that company become eligible to supply product to automobile industries.
2. IATF certificate give international branding as IATF is Internationally recognised.
3. Improve the complete manufacturing process of company.
4. As system of the company improved, rejection of product will also increase.
5. As IATF focus on continuous improvement there is culture develop in company that give importance for opportunity to improve the process and quality.
6. During audit any NC (Non- confirmation) observed give opportunity to improve the process.
7. Quality Management system improved during preparation for IATF and every time the quality system system improves in every audit and it raise the bar of every process of the company.

History of IATF:

Initially there is no single certificate that can allow supplier to supply their product to all type of automotive customer of different countries. Each country have some different certificate such as VDA (in Germany), SMMT (in UK), AIAG(in North America), etc. It is very difficult to take all the type of certificate because of two reasons, one is cost that is applicable to opt for certificate and second is huge documents to maintain for different certification. Due to these difficulties single certification come into existence that can allow suppliers to supply their product to automobile industries of any country. Journey of IATF is as follows:

• ISO/TS16949 first edition is created in 1999.
• ISO/TS16949 second edition is created in 2002.
• ISO/TS16949 third edition is created in 2009.
• ISO/TS is replaced by IATF in 2016