I'm very new to quality and NADCAP, and just went through my first NADCAP heat treat/hardness testing/metalography audit. We did pretty well, but got dinged with 3 findings. Two were minor calibration cert typos, and one was an issue with how we were performing Temperature Uniformity Surveys (TUS).
I've been able to close out two of the three findings, but I'm stuck on one and I only have one more chance at it. Apparently you only get three trys to get your root cause right then they fail you. Well, the first two were not accepted.
Here's the finding:
Requirement - AMS2750D
Our furnace type (2B) requires a load thermocouple, and we were not recording this with a dummy load during an unloaded TUS.
I've been able to close out two of the three findings, but I'm stuck on one and I only have one more chance at it. Apparently you only get three trys to get your root cause right then they fail you. Well, the first two were not accepted.
Here's the finding:
Requirement - AMS2750D
3.5.13.3.2 Once data collection begins, temperature data shall be recorded from all TUS sensors at a frequency of at least one set of all readings every two minutes for the duration of the survey. Data from furnace sensors required by the applicable instrumentation type (see 3.3) shall be recorded as follows: (Sensors whose only function is over temperature protection do not need to be recorded.)
We have had several prior NADCAP audits miss this and had in several NADCAP consultants that never picked up on this. We just didn't know we were doing TUS incorrectly.
My initial root cause response was that we misinterpruted AMS2750D and the corective action would be to include NADCAP's "Pyrometry Guide" as part of our audit and review process.
I found out after the finding that NADCAP made a clarification to this AMS2750D requirement in their Guide last March, but we didn't pick up on it at the time. I figured if they felt a clarification was required that they would understand how we missed it.
Not the case. NADCAP responded with "Readdress Root Cause response, requirement is stated in AMS2750D, why was it not identified during review process? How will review/flow down of Specification requirements be improved, now and in the future?".
When I submitted a second time saying the root cause was a misinterpretation of the spec I got back "Readdress Root Cause response, human error not an acceptable reply.".
I'm at a loss for how to address this finding and if I don't get it right I might be looking for a new job. We had a system problem, but the human who created the system made a mistake. We were following our internal procedures, but the procedures were incorrect.
Anyone got advice for a quality rookie?