To:    All General Motors Global Suppliers

As a result of the harmonization efforts of the supplier quality system requirements of car manufacturers worldwide, GM, as part of the International Automotive Task Force (IATF), has agreed to recognize the new ISO/TS 16949 standard. This standard provides a supplier of several car manufacturers with a single quality management system recognized by all IATF-participating companies at a minimum. We also plan to have a third party certification process that IATF-participationg companies will recognize as satisfying their current certification requirements, effective November 1, 1999.

GM will accept, as optional to QS-9000, a third party certification to ISO/TS 16949 that meets the following conditions:

• The certification scope must include both ISO/TS 16949 and the accompanying ISO/TS 16949 GM-Customer Specific Requirements, which are available on the GM supplier Web Site (www.gmsupplier.com)
• The certificaiton must be conducted in compliance with the IATF automotive certification scheme by a certification body contracted by an IATF trade association. e.g. VDA, SMMT, AIAG.

Note that GM does NOT require you to upgrade your QS-9000 certificate to ISO/TS 16949. However we strongly recommend that you use your next QS-9000 surveillance audit to upgrade to the ISO/TS 16949 with the above conditions.