Automotive Quality Systems Handbook, 2nd Edition

2 Knowledge of how the product or service is intended to be supplied. (This may be

gained from the supplier’s proposal or offer.)

3 Knowledge that the declared intentions will satisfy customer requirements if met. (This

may be gained from personal assessment or reliance on independent certifications.)

4 Knowledge that the declared intentions are actually being followed. (This may be

gained by personal assessment or reliance on independent audits.)

5 Knowledge that the products and services meet the specified requirements. (This

may be gained by personal assessment or reliance on independent audits.)

You can gain an assurance of quality by testing the product or service against prescribed

standards to establish its capability to meet them. However, this only gives confidence

in the specific product or service purchased and not in its continuity or consistency dur-

ing subsequent supply. Another way is to assess the organization that supplies the prod-

ucts or services against prescribed standards to establish its capability to produce products

of a certain standard. This approach may provide assurance of continuity and consist-

ency of supply.

Quality assurance activities do not control quality, they establish the extent to which

quality will be, is being or has been controlled. All quality assurance activities are post-

event activities and off-line, and serve to build confidence in results, in claims, in predic-

tions, etc. If a person tells you they will do a certain job for a certain price in a certain

time, can you trust them or will they be late, overspent and under specification? The only

way to find out is to gain confidence in their operations and that is what quality assur-

ance activities are designed to do. Quite often, the means to provide the assurance need

to be built into the process, such as creating records, documenting plans, documenting

specifications, reporting reviews, etc. Such documents and activities also serve to control

quality as well as assure it. ISO/TS 16949 provides a basis for obtaining an assurance of

quality, if you are the customer, and a basis for controlling quality, if you are the supplier.

Quality assurance is often perceived as the means to prevent problems but this is not

consistent with the definition in ISO 9000. In one case the misconception arises due to

people limiting their perception of quality control to control after the event; not appre-

ciating that you can control an outcome before the event by installing mechanisms to

prevent failure, such as automation, error-proofing and failure prediction.

In another case, the misconception arises due to the label attached to the ISO 9000

series of standards. They are sometimes known as the quality assurance standards

when in fact, as a family of standards, they are quality management system standards.

The requirements within the standards do aim to prevent problems, and consequently

the standard is associated with the term quality assurance. ISO/TS 16949 is designed

for use in assuring customers that suppliers have the capability of meeting their require-

ments. It is true that by installing a quality management system, you will gain an assurance

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