IATF 16949 requirements explained: video brief

Automotive supplements inside each ISO 9001 clause

IATF 16949 follows the clause structure of ISO 9001:2015, clauses 4 to 10, and adds automotive requirements as numbered supplements inside each clause; Annex A defines the control plan. Implementation is checked against the full text of both documents, your customers' specific requirements and the current sanctioned interpretations. This short film maps the main additions.

In clause 4 the system brings in the customer-specific requirements, ensures that every product and process, outsourced ones and replacement parts included, conforms to customer, statutory and regulatory requirements, and controls product safety. In practice that means a register of customer-specific requirements mapped to processes, a legal review for the countries of manufacture and destination, and product-safety characteristics with approvals and trained people. Clause 5 asks leadership to take responsibility for the plant's conduct, measure process effectiveness and efficiency, name process owners and assign responsibility by role for product requirements and corrective actions.

Where the automotive requirements bite

The later clauses add the disciplines automotive customers expect: planning that covers risk and contingency, support requirements for competence and measurement systems, an operation clause covering product and process design, supplier management, production control and the control plan defined in Annex A, and performance evaluation and improvement that drive defect prevention and the reduction of variation and waste. The core tools are part of how these requirements are met in practice.

Certification is site-specific, available to sites that manufacture automotive production, service, replacement or accessory parts, with or without embedded software. It is audited and decided by an IATF-recognised certification body under the IATF Rules 6th Edition. IATF 16949:2016 is the first edition, and a second edition is in preparation.

Because the standard is applied with ISO 9001 rather than instead of it, a site that already runs a sound ISO 9001 system starts with much of the base in place; the work lies in the automotive supplements and in the customer-specific requirements of each customer.