Hi,

I am a CSSBB and a Quality Manager for a small division of a big defense contractor.

We are doing new project work for one of our prime contractors. The Program Manager has been completing customer specific Disposition Action Reports for the new program. These take a lot of time and he wants to turn them over to Quality.

I have been at my current company for 3 years, but I seem to remember that it is sort of a conflict of interest for the Quality Department to fill out waivers...

What do others do? Is it common for the Quality Department to complete request for waivers?

As a Supplier Quality Manager I did it all the time - otherwise my supplier would have had everything on reject! It was an imperfect (but workable) way to deal with ineffective supplier relations, until I could get the engineers to work with suppliers to put realistic expectations on drawings etc.

No conflict of interest there.....

As a Supplier Quality Manager I did it all the time - otherwise my supplier would have had everything on reject! It was an imperfect (but workable) way to deal with ineffective supplier relations, until I could get the engineers to work with suppliers to put realistic expectations on drawings etc.

No conflict of interest there.....

I am the QA manager for our company and our quality procedures state that only a design engineer can deviate a part/product when the nonconformance affects fit, form or function. Rather than encourage a supplier to produce substandard parts (the supplier did, after all, say that he/she could supply parts/product based on your design/expectations) I am more interested in maintaining the quality of our product for our customers.

I am the QA manager for our company and our quality procedures state that only a design engineer can deviate a part/product when the nonconformance affects fit, form or function. Rather than encourage a supplier to produce substandard parts (the supplier did, after all, say that he/she could supply parts/product based on your design/expectations) I am more interested in maintaining the quality of our product for our customers.

I omitted that I always had the waiver approved by the Design and Production Engineering people, except one time.........................:notme:

I have always completed the Request for Waiver/Deviations from the QA Manager/Program Contracts Manager side.

I am the QA manager for our company and our quality procedures state that only a design engineer can deviate a part/product when the nonconformance affects fit, form or function. Rather than encourage a supplier to produce substandard parts (the supplier did, after all, say that he/she could supply parts/product based on your design/expectations) I am more interested in maintaining the quality of our product for our customers.


I would think that in most cases, if requirements are going to be waived, there would need to be evidence the customer agrees with the deviation, especially if it affects the final assembly. I can envision some exceptions to this statement, but it would be my starting point.

This is done in aerospace, too.

I prefer to see deviation/waiver requests initated by Engineering, prepared by Quality and processed through Marketing/Contracts. Then, I can be reasonably assured that the technical, quality and contract aspects have all been reviewed by the appropriate functions before submitting to the customer. Our quality system requires this process of incoming and outgoing requests.