Nissan NPQP and Ford Q1: customer-specific requirements for suppliers

How IATF 16949 customer-specific requirements work, what Nissan NPQP asks from suppliers, what Ford Q1 status is, and how to build a requirements matrix that maps every OEM document to your processes.

Updated 2026-10-28

Check the current documents. OEM requirements are revised often. This guide explains how they work and how to organise them; for the exact wording, revision and dates, use the current documents from your customer’s supplier portal or your supplier quality engineer.

Why customer-specific requirements matter

IATF 16949 is the base for automotive suppliers, and it requires you to evaluate the customer-specific requirements (CSR) and include them in the scope of your quality management system. In an audit they are checked together with the standard. A missed CSR is a nonconformity even if the IATF clause itself is met.

Nissan NPQP

NPQP is Nissan’s product quality planning process for suppliers. As Nissan describes it:

• suppliers must meet all IATF 16949 requirements, which is the minimum for applying NPQP;
• it covers requirements from early project planning, through the start of production, to the end of the product life, and applies to vehicle parts, modules, powertrain parts and service parts;
• the activities are arranged in phases tied to the milestones of the Nissan project, and suppliers must carry out the activities and submit evidence of them, by default in English;
• the supplier is responsible for its own sub-suppliers meeting the same requirements;
• Nissan can audit the supplier on site.

In practice NPQP activities map onto the APQP deliverables you already know. Use the current NPQP matrix as the checklist and map each activity to your documents:

Ford Q1

Q1 is Ford’s quality status for suppliers. Older Ford material describes it as a recognition that requires more than the base certification: capability shown beyond the ISO or IATF certificate, assessments of the manufacturing site and a record of good shipments. Treat these as historical hints, not as the current rules. The current requirements, the way Q1 is granted and what can cause its loss are in Ford’s current supplier quality documents and in the Ford CSR, so ask your Ford supplier quality engineer which versions apply to your site.

Build a requirements matrix

The safest way to handle any OEM is a matrix that you maintain, one row per requirement:

1. List the documents that apply: CSR, supplier quality manual, NPQP or Q1 documents, drawings and specifications, with the revision and the date you received them.
2. Extract every “shall” statement into a row. Do not summarise away details such as sample sizes or deadlines.
3. Map each row to the IATF clause and to the process that fulfils it (a turtle diagram per process helps).
4. Name the owner, the evidence (document, record) and the date of the last check.
5. Review it at least yearly, at every new revision from the customer, and before the certification and customer audits.
6. Use it to plan the internal audit, so that CSRs are audited, not only the standard.

Common mistakes

• Working with an old revision of the CSR because nobody subscribes to updates.
• Treating CSR as the quality manager’s job only: the owners of the processes must know their rows.
• Forgetting to pass requirements on to sub-suppliers, which both Nissan and IATF 16949 expect.
• Mixing the requirements of several OEMs in one generic procedure, so that the differences disappear.