Corrective Action Process Abuse

I have a salesman here that filled out a corrective action request form.
His concern is the Following: " A large quantity of part number xxx xxx-xxx ($28.72) remain unreturned for credit to vendor." I'm not sure why he would be involved or care.

There is a process for handling non-compliant materials in our ISO policy which hasn't been violated. What do you do with his request for corrective action? Refuse it? ask him to withdraw it? if he doesn't, then what?

How should this be handled?
Thanks for any type of input or comment on this issue.

edgedirk said:

I have a salesman here that filled out a corrective action request form.
His concern is the Following: " A large quantity of part number xxx xxx-xxx ($28.72) remain unreturned for credit to vendor." I'm not sure why he would be involved or care.

There is a process for handling non-compliant materials in our ISO policy which hasn't been violated. What do you do with his request for corrective action? Refuse it? ask him to withdraw it? if he doesn't, then what?

How should this be handled?
Thanks for any type of input or comment on this issue.

Click to expand...

edgedirk,

A golden opportunity to engage the sales team in proper uses of the corrective action process.

Thank the salesman for his customer focus and interest in improvement. By then you will have figured-out if the CAR is worthy of the investment to remove the root causes of this apparent problem.

BTW, your corrective action procedure should authorize you as a gatekeeper to decide whether or not to invest in corrective action at least until the users of this procedure have the competence of a good auditor.

John

John,

Thak you for your comment. This is pretty much what I was thinking.
BUt felt needed to hear it from someone else.

Thanks!

Well, then I'll reinforce with that's what I would have said, only he said it better than I would have.

Yeah, he does that.

edgedirk said:

How should this be handled?
Thanks for any type of input or comment on this issue.

Click to expand...

In this post, I listed some components of what I consider to be a robust corrective action process. It does start with a filter.

Why not simply pick up the phone and ASK the sales person what engendered his interest/concern in the issue? It may be something as simple as having a commission check held up.

John Broomfield said:

edgedirk,

BTW, your corrective action procedure should authorize you as a gatekeeper to decide whether or not to invest in corrective action at least until the users of this procedure have the competence of a good auditor.

John

Click to expand...

I could be wrong but I would have thought the person who makes decisions as whether not the CA process is to be implemented in relation to CA issues would be the process owner. They are the persons accountable for the outcomes of the process.

I don't agree with QSE people interfering in the internal affairs of the process owner.

When QSE people put themselves in the position suggested, in my experience, this makes it very easy for the process owner to hand ball responsibility for process failures off to someone else, the QSE person.

kgott said:

I could be wrong but I would have thought the person who makes decisions as whether not the CA process is to be implemented in relation to CA issues would be the process owner. They are the persons accountable for the outcomes of the process.

I don't agree with QSE people interfering in the internal affairs of the process owner.

When QSE people put themselves in the position suggested, in my experience, this makes it very easy for the process owner to hand ball responsibility for process failures off to someone else, the QSE person.

Click to expand...

kgott,

What you suggest sounds reasonable but two things concern me:

1. Removal of root causes requires a system view often beyond the scope of a process; this may be addressed by the problem solving team including team members from other processes and a suitably influential sponsor.

2. The competence to correctly and completely describe the requirement, nature and evidence of the nonconformity in defining the problem to be solved is often lacking when opening the initiation of corrective action to process owners; again this can be addressed by training or a skillful editor.

Until these issues are addressed, the System Manager tends to be the gatekeeper and monitors the work of problem solving teams while encouraging the widespread anyhow reporting of problems caused by the system.

John

edgedirk said:

I have a salesman here that filled out a corrective action request form.
His concern is the Following: " A large quantity of part number xxx xxx-xxx ($28.72) remain unreturned for credit to vendor." I'm not sure why he would be involved or care.

There is a process for handling non-compliant materials in our ISO policy which hasn't been violated. What do you do with his request for corrective action? Refuse it? ask him to withdraw it? if he doesn't, then what?

How should this be handled?
Thanks for any type of input or comment on this issue.

Click to expand...

I am not sure either, why he would be involved or care.
I am sure your process for handling non-compliant materials in your ISO policy hasn't been violated.

What do you do with his request for corrective action? Refuse it? ask him to withdraw it? if he doesn't, then what?

Click to expand...

Before you think of doing anything, is there a truth in what the salesman said ? Has that large quantity been investigated ? Is there is communication from that vendor ? Who is the actual effected person in your company, if there is some truth in what is reported and what is his version ?
These are paths for investigation and somewhere you will find the root cause if investigation is in required depth to address a concern.