TATA Steel first European steel company to be certified to IATF16949
Tata Steel in IJmuiden is the first European steel company to hold the IATF16949 certificate: the so-called Licence to Sell. It is required to be allowed to supply automotive customers. This certificate is the successor to the ISO/TS 16949 certificate. The big difference is that the requirements have been further tightened and there is even more focus on improvement.
By being the first to “go up” for this new certificate, Tata Steel shows what the company stands for: “Setting the bar high, to exceed our customers’ expectations,” says hub director Hans van den Berg. “With this certificate we show that we are making good strides and that we are also able to continue to learn and improve in order to serve our customers at an ever higher level. We now meet the Automotive standard, but we will have to continue to improve continuously and in this way we will also be measured against IATF. This is how we show our customers and our competitors that we are a strong player.”
“The audit is not an end in itself,” says Mark Denys, director of Technical. “It is precisely a matter of integrating those processes that are conditional for the certificate into our daily work. All departments contribute to this. One of the things Lloyd’s Register complimented us on was the increased quality and customer awareness they observed across the entire breadth of our company. That’s a mindset that our customers value and value.”
Collaboration between Tata Steel and Symbol
“The transition to IATF 16949 can be seen as a major project in which, in a coordinated way, the process owners in the organization translate the requirements into their work processes. In this transition project, we identified the need for support early on. In particular, there was a need for an outside perspective to spar and a certified training partner to train auditors and staff who need to be aware of the changes in the standard.”
“In Symbol we found the partner for this support. We quickly found a practical and good way of working together, in which we had the necessary discussions during the process to make the requirements practical and work for us. This has contributed in part to the successful transition that Tata Steel IJmuiden B.V. has made to IATF 16949.”
From Symbol, experienced consultants Sjoerd de Vries and Richard Winter guided the transition and trained employees and internal auditors at Tata Steel.
Presentation of IATF 16949 certificate to Hans van den Berg, Hub Director Tata Steel, by Peter Cornelissen, Area Operations Manager North Europe Lloyd’s Register.