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2.1 Identifying Safety Critical Parts

Group Companies must have a process policy that ensures that ‘safety critical’ parts are clearly identifies
those individuals responsible for purchasing or sourcing their replacements. These processes must ensure
that the approved source/supplier is clearly defined for each identified or ‘flagged’ part.

Group Companies must implement methods or systems appropriate to their operation, to identify these
safety critical parts. Typical examples of this would include a flag on a store or inventory system, an
authorised and approved list or a physical marking of the stores locations (for example the bin).

For each of these parts, the supplier must be clearly identified so that there can be no possibility of
purchasing the part via an alternative and unapproved source.

3.0 Preferred Suppliers of Safety Critical Parts

Appendix B details the relationship between the resourcing and management of parts and their source. The
illustration identifies that maximum assurance and minimum management resource is achieved through the
purchasing of parts that are OEM. However there may be commercial advantages to purchasing parts
manufactured by the OEM’s supplier (i.e. Knorr-Brems or WABCO) where parts contracts cannot be
negotiated.

In this case, Group Companies must have a robust assurance process to ensure that the parts supplied
meet or exceed the OEM specification.

Note that as the sourcing of parts moves further away from the OEM (i.e. further down the parts triangle in
Appendix B) the greater the level of assessment that is required to ensure that the part meets the required
standard. Given the potential liability should a safety critical part fail, this process must be robust, recorded,
and carried out by a competent person.

For this reason, Group Companies are recommended to purchase OEM parts in the first instance.

There may be circumstances where vehicles or suppliers become obsolete and Group Companies may be
forced to seek alternative suppliers. In this case, Group Companies are required to apply thorough and
rigorous assessment of the parts, as above and in section 3.1.

3.1 Non OEM Parts Approval

Group Companies must ensure there is a robust, documented procedure for the assessment and approval
of parts not supplied by the OEM.

Note that this must include suppliers of OEM parts, but who are not considered to be the OEM, i.e. the
supplier of the vehicle. As an example, Group Companies would be required to assess a WABCO part
supplied by a reputable brake component vendor for fitment on a Volvo.

This process must include documented records of such assessments and resulting with an ultimate ‘sign
off’ by an authorised person (i.e. the Engineering Director, or equivalent).

Global Maintenance Standard: Parts Management (Including Safety Critical Parts) 6