Contract Review Definition in a Couple Sentences

If you had to define Contract Review in a couple sentences what would you say it is?


My simple attempt would be:

The process of reviewing the purchase order for defined quality, processing, delivery, and handling requirements prior to accepting the order.

Re: Defining Contract Review

Tom W said:

If you had to define Contract Review in a couple sentences what would you say it is?


My simple attempt would be:

The process of reviewing the purchase order for defined quality, processing, delivery, and handling requirements prior to accepting the order.

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Generally, we quality professionals think there should be a little more -
In most cases, we like to think about the business end, too.
Will the contract be "doable" at the price to provide sufficient profit for the supplier?
Is the customer capable of paying?
How will the customer make approval for accepting delivery?
What is the process for handling any disputes which may arise?

In my own particular case, we reviewed contracts with a cross-functional team (marketing, manufacturing, purchasing [could we get materials at price and in timely manner?], packaging, legal, financial, quality, etc.)

I was obsessive and we were making products to spec for fussy customers - one mistake could be extremely costly!

Re: Defining Contract Review

Thanks Wes, your right "we" quality professionals do think there is always more to include or cover...that's one of my problems with trying to come up with a simple definition.

Situation is that we are a service provider, so the parts come in and the customer wants them back as fast as possible.

When the customer is in our system then all of the credit and payment terms have been worked out already.

When they are not in our system or it's a new part we go into quality planning and review quotes, prints, specs, turn-around, processing requirements and things like that.

With the PO review we want to have a simple method to verify the information on the PO and ensure it flows down correctly or issues are resolved prior to us processing. We are looking at including a price verification at contract review as well although this has rarely even been an issue. We are looking at a stamp with the cross function team having the requirement to review their information they would be looking for on the PO and then signoff on the stamp on the PO.

Challenge is to not make this a burden on the shop floor by holding work that could be getting into our furnaces because someone was in a meeting or out of the office. We are looking at secondary people that can fill in but time is of the essence in most cases: HOWEVER we want to make sure we are doing our do diligence to review prior to receiving.

So our task is clear - make it effective but "efficent" and most people think fast is efficent.

Re: Defining Contract Review

Wes Bucey said:

Generally, we quality professionals think there should be a little more -
In most cases, we like to think about the business end, too.
Will the contract be "doable" at the price to provide sufficient profit for the supplier?
Is the customer capable of paying?
How will the customer make approval for accepting delivery?
What is the process for handling any disputes which may arise?
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Most "quality professionals" don't get involved in the "business end" as far as pricing and customer solvency are concerned and that's generally a good thing. A quality person might be asked to review the requirements and determine whether anything new is needed (measuring devices or other tools, e.g.) and if testing is required the quality person might be asked to get quotes or supply internal cost information, but that's about as far as it usually goes (other than making sure the requirements for making and verifying the product are clear and ambiguities are dealt with).

As far as a brief description goes, I'd say that contract review is simply a process whereby capability and feasibility to produce the product (or service) according to documented requirements is confirmed.