We recently were audited by a customer, a large well known customer. During the audit I requested to know where the requirement was for an item to clarify what they expected to see. The answer was "we do not audit to the manual, we audit to the checklist".

The "requirements" on the checklist are not in the Supplier Quality Manual, and the opinions that were added are not there either. In addition, we have not received the audit report back from them, and it has been a month. Now they are concerned that we are not taking them seriously. :truce:

Any suggestions are welcome!

We recently were audited by a customer, a large well known customer. During the audit I requested to know where the requirement was for an item to clarify what they expected to see. The answer was "we do not audit to the manual, we audit to the checklist".

The "requirements" on the checklist are not in the Supplier Quality Manual, and the opinions that were added are not there either. In addition, we have not received the audit report back from them, and it has been a month. Now they are concerned that we are not taking them seriously. :truce:

Any suggestions are welcome!Welcome to the real world! Some customers (or merely only their Supplier Quality Auditors [SQA]) are notorious for seeming to make up "rules" after the fact.

The way you and you bosses deal back with them depends a lot on how important this customer is.

One thing your organization "should" do is add an item to your Contract Review to check for this sort of thing BEFORE entering into new contracts with this customer or with any other.

The one thing you CAN do regardless of the importance of this customer, is to send a formal written notice to the customer's top purchasing agent, with copies to the SQA who visited your plant and his direct boss, simply stating the facts:


We were audited on _____________
The auditor was _______________
The Supplier Quality Manual (SQM) states [implies? cite the exact language] we would receive a copy of the report __________________
We have not yet received a report.
Has one been sent and gone astray?
If one has not been sent, may we know the reason for the delay?


Under no circumstances should this notice include any gripe about the disparity between SQM and actual audit - that's grist for another mill and would only cloud the issue. Keep focused - one topic per message!

The effect of this notice will be


to alert all parties you are on top of the situation and have done all in your power - the ball is in their court.
It may be the customer policy and normal usage to mistreat suppliers - this is a good time learn that.
It may be some simple SNAFU at the customer - this is a good time for the customer to learn that.
It may be the SQA is incompetent - it is past time for the customer to learn that!

When we requested the audit report they said that they could not upload it to their system for some reason, and sent a listings of items that were upgraded from a major to a minor. Also items that remained at at major. There were about 40 NCs in all.

What they sent us did not even make sense. They gave us a major for not having a procedure to audit suppliers. Then stated that we did not have a procedure to qualify auditors or do internal audits. That is not what they asked for, the interal audit procedure would have been easy.

Then we got a major because the auditor, with no manufacturing experience, could not build a complicated electronic part just by following the work instruction. We explained that we would never put an untrained person on a line to do a job. No effect, we should be able to pull anyone in off the street and give them the work instruction and turn them loose.

How to you give a customer a clue?
MsHeeler

When we requested the audit report they said that they could not upload it to their system for some reason, and sent a listings of items that were upgraded from a major to a minor. Also items that remained at at major. There were about 40 NCs in all.

What they sent us did not even make sense. They gave us a major for not having a procedure to audit suppliers. Then stated that we did not have a procedure to qualify auditors or do internal audits. That is not what they asked for, the interal audit procedure would have been easy.

Then we got a major because the auditor, with no manufacturing experience, could not build a complicated electronic part just by following the work instruction. We explained that we would never put an untrained person on a line to do a job. No effect, we should be able to pull anyone in off the street and give them the work instruction and turn them loose.

How to you give a customer a clue?
MsHeeler

Sounds like a sit-down is needed, in which you go over the findings one-by-one and voice your objections. You shouldn't be afraid to calmly object to things that make no sense. My own urge would be to ask how the customer would feel if they had just boarded a 747 and were informed before takeoff that the pilot had never flown an airplane before, but he had read the instructions for flying large commercial aircraft, so no one should be worried. I would resist that urge, however, in favor of sober and polite discussion.

I like your way, and I will have to put it in my book for items to think of during an audit to keep me calm, and maby work into the conversation if it comes up again.

We tried to discuss these items with the auditors and the coversation got heated and at some times loud. The problem is, there is no way to answer the items without knowing what they want, since it is not stated anywhere. :mad:

And now they are upset because we do not answer a non exsiting audit report. How does such a large company stay in business?

MsHeeler

I like your way, and I will have to put it in my book for items to think of during an audit to keep me calm, and maby work into the conversation if it comes up again.

We tried to discuss these items with the auditors and the coversation got heated and at some times loud. The problem is, there is no way to answer the items without knowing what they want, since it is not stated anywhere. :mad:

And now they are upset because we do not answer a non exsiting audit report. How does such a large company stay in business?

MsHeeler

I don't know how important your products are to the supplier, and you might get to a point where you have to swallow a bitter pill. A good point to make with them, however, is that your company's quoted prices are based in part on the customer's documented requirements, and that substantial changes in requirements could result in reopening the contract. Sometimes that's the only way to get their attention.

We have a Very Large Global Customer that gigged us in a recent audit for not responding promptly enough on ten product packaging complaints from their Japan subsidiary...even though the auditors were aware that they delayed sending us six of the complaints for eight months (extending into a different fiscal year), and still haven't sent us the other four, almost two years after they supposedly occurred.

I wish there was a practical way for us to issue NCs to them each time they don't have their ISO act together.

That would be great! Do you think that we should offer to come in and to a courtesy audit for them? :whip:

MsHeeler

I think Jim Wynne would agree with me that no purpose is served by being snippy or sarcastic to the customer.

The key to maintaining control over emotions (which can quickly escalate into he said/she said shouting matches) is to


WRITE an agenda for the meeting
distribute it in advance to all concerned parties for comment (addition or subtraction) BEFORE the meeting
stick strictly to the agenda DURING the meeting
make notes of answers and action items, especially WHO, and any projected time tables for the action to be performed (be sure YOU make the notes)
distribute copies of the notes to the same parties who received the agenda PLUS any additional parties identified during the meeting
Follow up on action items according to the projected time table
notify ALL parties again when action items are not complete by time table date; request new projected date
notify ALL parties as each action item is completed.

Some may view this as merely a CYA stopgap, but systematic processes take the events out of the "special, emotion-charged, fire-fighting" category into "business as usual" where the real work gets performed.

We recently were audited by a customer, a large well known customer. During the audit I requested to know where the requirement was for an item to clarify what they expected to see. The answer was "we do not audit to the manual, we audit to the checklist".

The "requirements" on the checklist are not in the Supplier Quality Manual, and the opinions that were added are not there either. In addition, we have not received the audit report back from them, and it has been a month. Now they are concerned that we are not taking them seriously.


I don't know if it can help You but You are not the only one.
When a "well known customer" comes to audit, it may happen thay are not looking for seeing if Your organization/system works "well" but how many differences there are between Your system and their "perfect" one by checklist. You can receive the checklist before the audit but without any "customer trainer" You can not understand most of the items.
Some customers pretend to have a copy of their quality/production/etc system in your plant for the parts You are producing for them. everything that is not a copy of their system is a "NC" or a remark that you must solve introducing their methodology/phylosophy
when it happened to me I tried to find someone to speak with inside customer organization. When I found out, I used him as consultan in order to understand the "real" meaning of the checklist and I found out some interesting points.

Look at the findings, try to sketch a proposal, send Your comments and proposal to Your top management and wait for Your top management answer. If it takes time tell Your customer Your organisation is thinking about their proposals for improvement very carefully because they (the proposal) are so "wise" (:sarcasm: ?)

At the end it is Your top managent that takes the decision. If They wont the business You must bear all the conseguences:notme:.

imho aswer to the customer and look likes you appreciate their audit or your organization will charge You for all the problems/delays etc:bonk:

I feel for you - you have learned (by very unfortunate example) that poor auditing can cause enormous amounts of angst and eat up huge amounts of time.

I've had clients get into similar problems - one (large multinational) customer came along to a client's (also large multinational) premises to do a 'supplier audit'. They produced a lengthy & virtually incomprehensible report with incomprehensible and findings without evidence, stated in terms which were unintelligible, etc... and then demanded action on them.

I did think in that case that the audited organisation contributed to their own problems, because they didn't have a systematic process, they didn't manage it well, they did have a few internal weaknesses, and they didn't get from the customer any kind of audit scope or plan in the first place... they just allowed their customer personnel to come in and do whatever they did. (Not well in my opinion). It certainly drives one back again to look at the the various Standards and appreciate, yet again, why certain things are included.

As Wes very wisely says:
systematic processes take the events out of the "special, emotion-charged, fire-fighting" category into "business as usual" where the real work gets performed.

And both Jim & Wes have provided some fine advice on how to manage the situation.

Ultimately, as has been said, your management may have to swallow hard and wear it, depending on how much you want the business. But I would look at finding a better way of managing things in future, or at least aiming to prevent some of the worst of the problems.

It can be most helpful in your discussions/meetings to keep referencing back to the facts and the evidence (ie, stay objective) and quote an International Standard - eg, the Auditing one - whenever & wherever possible, as this keeps the focus on that rather than 'personalising' things.

eg, 'well, we assume the auditing process should be based on the requirements in this International Standard - I imagine you would agree that this is an excellent way to go? And it stipulates that ...'

PS: I don't favour the 'tell your customer your organisation is thinking about their proposals for improvement very carefully because they (the proposal) are so "wise"' approach. I never favour untruths.

PS: I don't favour the 'tell your customer your organisation is thinking about their proposals for improvement very carefully because they (the proposal) are so "wise"' approach. I never favour untruths.

…yeah… why don’t you just tell them directly that their complaint is invalid and lay down your reasoning…

…an open discussion is always the best approach when dealing with miscommunication scenario between customer and supplier…

:2cents:

well, I would like to explain better my position:
the word "wise" it is not the best to use but my poor english didn't suggest something better.
In the "real" world there are customers who don't care about ISO standards and CB, your argumentations etc. Their auditors came with the specific task to check if You are using their procedures. E.g. it doesn't matter if You have already got an 8D form, You must use, even internally, a copy of their form, adopting all their procedures. Same for R&R, MSA etc. Their auditors don't discuss with You if your current prodcedure or the standards are working well, they are not allowed to do that by their organization. The only discussion may be how long it takes to You to adopt their procedures. Objectiveness is not a finding for "mistakes", "potential failures" etc. but just a discrepancy from their Quality procedures.
At the end of the audit You are wondering if it make sense to pay a CB for audit your system.
Most of the time the said customers wait for weeks to send You the report where normally You find more findings respect to what they told You during the audit.
In such a case I tried to be as polite and kind as possible. On the other side I tried to figure out the implications of their findings in order to present that to my top management and get a final position from them. As it takes time I need to calm the customer we are working on it.

well, I would like to explain better my position:
the word "wise" it is not the best to use but my poor english didn't suggest something better.

Mi scusi. My apologies if I didn't take your meaning clearly - and I quite understand about language difficulties :) - your English by the way is way, way better than my very limited Italian!

I do understand that such things as the scenario you describe can occur. And your approach sounds like a very good one to a very difficult situation.

In such a case I tried to be as polite and kind as possible. On the other side I tried to figure out the implications of their findings in order to present that to my top management and get a final position from them. As it takes time I need to calm the customer we are working on it.

And a much more diplomatic one than Joshua's suggestion of 'just tell them it's invalid' - which sounds to me (unless he meant it tongue in cheek) like a very good way of inflaming the situation!

…yeah… why don’t you just tell them directly that their complaint is invalid and lay down your reasoning…

…an open discussion is always the best approach when dealing with miscommunication scenario between customer and supplier…

:2cents:

Ive had to do just that more than once with larger Automotive customers.
Sadly the auditors from there do not always seem to understand normal business/manufacturing processes, only what they have read in text books, or from there internally developed internal procedures.
I have had issues with level of competence required to perform a certain task and how it related to the level of training required.
I answered that one by referring to the training records AND the job prerequisites.
Most Quality standards I have ever read always state something similar to : "the level of competence or training to perform the task".
I have never changed internal procedures to suit an auditor at that level. I demonstrate (sometimes in written reply) how we achieve the control of the finished product. May be by testing, inspection or whatever.

Bazzle

I did not see any indication that your sales people who deal (hopefully directly) V this customer have been involved in the issue. If it is true that they are not involved would it not be a good idea to bring them into the discussions?

Ive had to do just that more than once with larger Automotive customers.
Sadly the auditors from there do not always seem to understand normal business/manufacturing processes, only what they have read in text books, or from there internally developed internal procedures.
I have had issues with level of competence required to perform a certain task and how it related to the level of training required.
I answered that one by referring to the training records AND the job prerequisites.
Most Quality standards I have ever read always state something similar to : "the level of competence or training to perform the task".
I have never changed internal procedures to suit an auditor at that level. I demonstrate (sometimes in written reply) how we achieve the control of the finished product. May be by testing, inspection or whatever.

Bazzle

…I do understand your predicament…. unfortunately, you are on the side of the boat where you have to comply with the requirement of the one entity (or more) who keeps your business ongoing…

…using your customer’s supplied standard forms, I guess had been discussed and agreed during your contract review process (or whatever process you may have dealing with customer requirements)… the point is, your organization (might) already agreed on that condition that is why your customer is insisting you to follow what have been already agreed… unless of course, mishap happens, and these “requirements” have not been discussed and agreed before… then you have valid reason to disagree with what they are compelling you to do…