Hi All,

I have to define some internal rules in my organization in order to properly handle non conforming material return.

Sales people are often asked by the Customers to collect back immediately the (sometimes supposed) non conforming material.

I would like to give them a clear procedure in order to handle at best this situations thus avoiding unnecessary transport costs and waste of time/resources.

Could anybody share his procedures/rules/thoughts on this subject?
Thank you in advance.
Giuseppe
:thanx:

This is what I found in the 'post attachments list' (http://elsmar.com/Forums/fileslist.php?mode=allfiles&sortby=filename&pageamt=2&criteria=return)by using 'return' as key word. You may be able to get more by trying with other key words.

Hello,

This is very important and complicated stuff. Apart from various procedures, let this approval for accepting returning material be with one / two people max. preferably who investigate and submit report for the cause.

What have the customers been told about returning material that they do not like? Are you under any contractural agreements? One of my first concerns where I work and I can't emphasize it enough is, "What did we tell our customers?"

What have the customers been told about returning material that they do not like? Are you under any contractural agreements? One of my first concerns where I work and I can't emphasize it enough is, "What did we tell our customers?"

I completely agree with you. Of course any contractual agreement may strongly influence how to deal with material return.

Where I work we can have different situations but I would like to receive some advice for two especially:

1. still no contract signature - what we can propose to our customers?
2. contract but no agreement on material return - how can we we manage the situation with the lowest cost for our company and highest satisfaction for our customers?

for both of the above points I'd like to know what people around are typically doing.

Thank you again...

A lot of this will depend upon your product, your company, and ease of return. Make the system work for you.

Some examples:

make sure the return is tied to a customer complaing (corrective acton request for tracking
if the product is returned and the investigation shows that there was no problem with the product as supplied, the customer pays the return charges
wait until the investigation is complete before you allow it to be returned.
let the customer scrap it locally, then pay the difference between what the customer paid originally minus the scrap value (commodity materials)

There are many other things that you may want to consider, but like I said, it depends a whole lot on what you are supplying - a TV set, or plutonium. There may even be regulatory or legal requirements to meet.

In my last company, which I thought had the better system for returning non-confirming product.

The customer or our outside sales contacts our inside sales of their will to return non-conforming product. Inside sales issues a RMA (return material authorization) with the description of the non-conformity and quantity, as well as asking traceability information for the purpose of tracking products in the warehouse. VP of Sales (who is actively involved in quality) and/or Quality approves the RMA if valid non-conformance is described, or will require outside sales to review the non-conformance on site prior to agreement.

Some outside sales have developed very good skills in verifying quality, so they will feed information right back without samples. Others will send samples or pictures for review first. A third scenario, is that the VP of Sales will just approve the RMA without any review, just to offer a goodwill to significant customer or with good partnership. Either way, the customer will somehow gets a reply right away if RMA is approved or we are working on it with progression.