A customer may file a performance complaint against one of their IATF 16949 certified suppliers using the Supplier Complaint Reporting process.

This process is not to be used to file ethics concerns or complaints about an IATF recognized Certification Body, IATF Certification Body auditor or IATF Global Oversight office. These types of concerns or complaints should be filed using this website: https://secure.ethicspoint.com

If a customer has a supplier of components or materials or a provider of manufacturing processes that is certified to IATF 16949 and that the supplier has demonstrated through its actions and performance that it is not meeting requirements due to failures or gaps attributable to specific clauses in the IATF 16949 standard, then it might be appropriate to submit a Performance Complaint against the supplier's IATF 16949 QMS certification.

Note: a Performance Complaint is only to be raised after all the standard internal customer processes to address supplier QMS concerns related to quality, delivery or process compliance issues have been completed and the complaint has been escalated and approved by leadership for submission.

• Chronic, systemic evidence that the organization is not meeting the customer's quality or delivery performance requirements resulting from:
  • A QMS inadequate to meet customer's requirements, or
  • The organization's nonconformance to its own QMS processes
• Chronic, systemic evidence of the organization not meeting the customer's quality or delivery process requirements

Below are links to documents with examples to determine if the identified supplier concern warrants the filing of a performance complaint:
Examples of acceptable performance complaints
Examples of inappropriate performance complaints
Examples of acceptable process performance complaints

For any supplier performance complaint submitted, objective evidence is required in order to proceed with a proper investigation.

• Once you have submitted a complaint through the online form, you will receive confirmation of receipt within one business day.
• Your complaint form is passed to the Compliance team who will assess the complaint details and decide on the appropriate action required. Your communication with the Compliance team is confidential and will only be shared on a strict need-to-know basis.
• The Complaint team may need to clarify some of the information provided to ensure the complaint can be sent to the correct IATF Global Oversight office for investigation. If the Compliance team has additional follow-up questions you may receive an email from a team member. Otherwise, the investigation process will begin.
• You will receive notification when the investigation is complete, and that typically takes up to ninety calendar days if an onsite investigation is necessary.

Before a performance complaint can be filed, a questionnaire must be completed, to help confirm that the identified concern does warrant the filing of a performance complaint. Please complete the following questionnaire to enable access to the performance complaint submission form.

Performance Complaints can only be submitted against your IATF certified direct supplier. If this complaint is about a sub-tier supplier, and you have questions about the options available to you, please contact us through Contact Us.