IRIS (railway standard)
With the IRIS (International Railway Industry Standard) set of rules , the Union des Industries Ferroviaires Européennes (UNIFE), based in Brussels, in close cooperation with the leading railway system manufacturers, has an internationally applicable requirement for the quality management systems of railway manufacturers and in particular their suppliers of equipment components as well as engineering Service providers - who can also receive their own certificates - worked out. IRIS is based on the requirements of ISO 9001 and contains additional rail-specific requirements.
IRIS 00 was published in March 2006, on November 1, 2007 revision 01 appeared, which has formed the basis for certification since January 2008. The addendum of June 19, 2008 also includes requirements for the maintenance of rail vehicles and signaling technology. Revision 02 based on ISO 9001: 2008 was published on June 18, 2009. In a transitional period until December 31, 2009, certification could be based on Rev. 01 or 02; from 2010 onwards, only Rev. 02 was used. Existing certificates according to IRIS 01 remained valid for three years.
The IRIS set of rules of Rev. 02 - supplemented by corrigendums and advisories, published as Rev. 02.1 - leads the company processes from the QMS (quality management system) to the BMS (business management system) and requires extensive documentation: 16 procedures and 25 processes must be appropriate Scope to be determined and documented. Of particular note are processes such as " project management ", " Configuration Management " and " obsolescence management". The set of rules defines 20 areas of application (Scopes of Certification) that are assigned to the suppliers for the respective product group. The certification audit is carried out on the basis of an extensive catalog of requirements, which can also be used by the company to carry out internal audits .
The result of the certification or the internal audit is measured using a degree of fulfillment. In this way, the system improvements in the following years can be demonstrated by increasing the degree of fulfillment. After certification and inclusion in the UNIFE supplier portal, the suppliers introduce themselves to their potential customers in the rail industry on the UNIFE website. Until 2009, the manufacturers of railway systems required their A-suppliers to be certified according to IRIS.
The requirements of IRIS Rev. 02.1 were based on ISO 9001: 2008, which became invalid after the publication of ISO 9001: 2015 with a three-year transition period on September 15, 2018. Certifications according to the old standard could in principle still be carried out, but the certificate was then only valid for a shortened period until September 14, 2018.
A new IRIS standard based on ISO 9001: 2015 with the new high level structure was published in May 2017 as ISO / TS 22163. As before, a comprehensive catalog of requirements must be met to the required extent during an audit. A transition audit from IRIS Rev. 02.1 to Rev.03 or to ISO / TS 22163 had to be carried out successfully by September 14, 2018 in order to maintain the IRIS certification.
For companies that have valid certificates according to ISO 9001: 2015, AS 9100: 2016 or IATF 16949: 2016 and intend to upgrade to ISO / TS 22163, the effort of the certification audit (initial audit) may be reduced if the certification body has all of these certifications is the same. The certification audits of Rev.03 are carried out according to the IRIS Certification Rules 03: 2017 by auditors from accredited certification bodies such as B. Bureau Veritas , DQS , TÜV , SGS or DEKRA . Auditors must be qualified and certified by the IRIS Management Center.
If a company wants to supply series products for both the railroad manufacturer and the automotive or aviation industry, an organizational separation of the production areas cannot be avoided in addition to the respective certification.
1950 companies worldwide are certified according to ISO / TS 22163 (IRIS Rev.03) (status 12/2019).