Inspector CA (Corrective Action) request

I have an inspector that gave me a Corrective Action request because or records stated C=0 sampling plan and it also annotated ANSI Z1.4 on the bottom of the record, C=0 was called out in the contract and ANSI was called out in the QAR. The parts that were being inspected were 100% compliant to the print and no non-conformance was found on the dimensional of the part itself. Would a CA be necessary?

Good evening QualityEMW, what was the NC wording? If we can see the exact writeup it might be easier to give you an appropriate answer.

While I agree with Jennifer that a specific wording from the inspector would help clarify, I'm going to go ahead and interpret as best as I can...

It seems that the issue is that you have defined 2 different sampling plans: so which do you use? C=0 and Z1.4 many define different sample sizes, so "100% compliant" may be according to one sampling plan, and not the other.

If your "100% compliant" is according to BOTH plans, then there is no problem (except perhaps making your life unnecessarily complicated ).

It seems to me, the simplest thing to do is just include a caveat in your procedure like, for example "ANSI Z1.4 sampling plan shall be used, unless customer request or contracts dictate otherwise.".

This way, when there are conflicts like in this situation, it is still clear which plan takes precedence.

QualityEMW said:

Would a CA be necessary?

Click to expand...

Not only is a corrective action request justified, as per contractual requirements, no sampling was allowed, but the correction (on top of the corrective action) must include the inspection of all parts in the lot which were not inspected.

So, in my estimation, based on what I understand the scenario to be, the inspector was 100% correct in triggering a corrective action request.

Our record that identified the separate sampling plans was for 4 parts and we recorded every characteristic for every dimension on the print for all the parts in the lot. also annotated on the record was a pass cell that was signed off by the Quality Manager.

Let me get this straight:

- There was a conflict between sampling plans dictated by contract and by QS procedure.
- In this case you conducted 100% inspection.

Practically: there shouldn't be a problem, as 100% inspection is the most thorough you can be!
Technically: you are non-conforming to your procedure.

In my opinion, this is a bit of nitpicking as you are actually being more thorough then what is specified, however it shouldn't be a big deal to correct by simply including some caveats in your procedure to allow for these situations.

thanks, we were able to get the CA down to a level 1, and that requires no addition documentation. I appreciate the technical advise!

We know that you inspected 4 parts. How many parts were in the lot?

the whole lot consisted of 4 parts. We completed 100% inspection of every part for the contract.

Thanks for the clarification.

That being the case, the situation is not as severe as I thought it was. So, the problem was basically conflicting information concerning the amount of sampling to be used. If this is a totally isolated instance of this type of problem, then, I would not issue a corrective action request.

On the other hand, if this was just one MORE example of conflicting information being provided to the inspector, s/he might have a point in triggering the CAR.