What Is IATF 16949 Certification? [Free Template!]

Chapter 2: Normative and Informative References

This chapter informs users that the annexes to the IATF 16949 certification manual are an integral part of the document and should be used when necessary.

Chapter 3: Terms and Definitions

To avoid possible misunderstandings, the third chapter defines all technical terms used throughout the document.

Chapter 4: Context of the Organization

This is the first chapter of the guiding document that mentions aspects that need to be evaluated. It seeks to assess your plant’s approaches to quality management, such as:

• The scope of your plant’s current quality management system.
• Your plant’s attempt to conform to the existing regulatory requirements.
• The overall safety of your products and production process.

Chapter 5: Leadership

The fifth chapter focuses on your plant’s management and corporate culture elements. For example, it checks:

• Whether your plant has policies on bribery, an employee code of conduct, a whistleblowing system, and other ethics-related policies.
• If the plant’s organizational structure is clear, where every employee has clearly defined roles, authorities, and responsibilities.
• The plant’s quality assurers’ response when detecting defective products.

Chapter 6: Planning

The term “Planning” here refers to your plant’s readiness to face challenging situations. For instance, auditors will evaluate:

• The measures taken by your plant to prevent defects and irregularities.
• The contingency plans that your plant has against unwanted incidents (e.g., customer complaints, product recalls, etc.).
• Whether your plant has improved its production system after unwanted incidents occurred.

Chapter 7: Support

The seventh chapter is very broad, as it covers your plant’s entire production resources. This includes its production facility (including machinery and tools), its human resources, and its technical know-how. Examples of graded points here include:

• Whether all devices with measurements (e.g., scales, thermometers, digital torque wrenches, etc.) are regularly calibrated.
• Whether all employees are sufficiently trained to perform their role.
• The compliance of your plant’s infrastructure (e.g., buildings, equipment, vehicles, IT hardware & software, etc.) towards the existing regulatory standards.

Chapter 8: Operation

This chapter focuses on your plant’s daily operations. This includes the research & development phases of your products, your production activities, and your overall customer service experience. For instance, it evaluates:

• Whether your product research & development activities follow a clearly defined set of guidelines.
• The conformity of your production activities towards the existing industry standards.
• Whether your products completely fulfill the specifications that were advertised to your customers.

Chapter 9: Performance Evaluation

Chapter 9 tests your plant’s ability to evaluate its performance. This includes the ability to measure your own products’ quality and your customers’ satisfaction. Examples of assessed elements include:

• Whether your plant has a performance evaluation mechanism.
• Whether your plant monitors its customers’ satisfaction rate.
• The effectiveness of your plant’s evaluations and internal audits.

Chapter 10: Improvement

The final chapter sees whether your plant is continuously seeking improvements. Hence, some of the aspects that auditors will check are:

• Whether your plant is constantly trying to improve its products’ quality.
• Your employees’ reactions whenever a defect or deviations are detected on the shop floor.
• Your plant’s error-proofing strategy to prevent future defects and deviations.

The complete certification guidelines (in multiple languages) can be found on IATF’s website. To complement these guidelines, there are also free multilingual IATF 16949 questions and answers PDF documents.

How to Be IATF 16949 Certified? 

Now that you’ve learned the basics of IATF 16949, it’s time to move to the next step. How can your plant be IATF 16949 certified?

To achieve an IATF 16949 certification, your plant must pass an audit done by an accredited auditor. The list of accredited auditors can be found on IATF’s website.

To ensure success on your IATF 16949 certification, you should prepare your plant’s readiness in advance. Check out our guide on how to get an IATF 16949 certification and how to provide IATF 16949 internal auditor training.

Here’s an overview of the steps that should be taken and how Azumuta can be used as an IATF 16949 certification-supporting software:

Step 1: Within your plant, create an ad-hoc IATF 16949 certification team. Then, study the IATF 16949 certification standards, its rules, and other useful materials.

Step 2: Equip your team with the necessary knowledge by providing IATF 16949 training courses. Use our interactive training software to ensure that they are well-informed in the certifications’ details.

Use our employee skill matrix chart to assess and visualize their knowledge.