AS9100 Clause 7.4.3 Verification of Purchased Product (audit Finding)

One the the minor findings noted by my registrar auditor was that incomming test reports/certifications for raw material were not being reviewed to ensure results are acceptable per applicable specifications. Ref AS9100 Para 7.4.3.
We always check to see if the correct specification and material description is called out on the cert. We also send out a material sample for testing to an independent lab every tenth receival.
Do I really have to verify the chemicals and physicals recorded on the cert against the spec for every raw material receipt?
Jim

Re: 7.4.3 Verification of Purchased Product (audit Finding)

J Allen said:

Do I really have to verify the chemicals and physicals recorded on the cert against the spec for every raw material receipt?

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If you had to do that, it would basically mean that you can not trust the supplier's certificate of conformity. If you could not trust their CoC, why should you trust the results of their physical/chemical analysis or the supplier themselves?

In my opinion you do NOT have to review/scrutinize each parameter of the certificate, received by the supplier. AS9100 states

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Verification activities may include
a) obtaining objective evidence of the quality of the product from suppliers (e.g., accompanying documentation, certificate of conformity, test reports, statistical records, process control),​

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So, the NC seems a stretch, IMO.

Re: 7.4.3 Verification of Purchased Product (audit Finding)

Sidney & J Allen,

If you look at the third paragraph in 7.4.3 you will find this requirement. It states:

“Where the organization utilizes test reports to verify purchased product, the data in those reports shall be acceptable per applicable specifications. The organization shall periodically validate test reports for raw material.”

Here the AS9100 standard is saying that if there is data (physical/chemical values) it must be compared to the requirements of the applicable specification. The valued must fall within the requirements of the specification.

The last line also requires that samples of raw material must be independently retested to assure that the data in the suppliers test report is valid. Not all test reports need to be validated but a process for assuring your suppliers test reports are correct must be in place.

Re: 7.4.3 Verification of Purchased Product (audit Finding)

Jeff Frost said:

Sidney & J Allen,

If you look at the third paragraph in 7.4.3 you will find this requirement. It states:

“Where the organization utilizes test reports to verify purchased product, the data in those reports shall be acceptable per applicable specifications. The organization shall periodically validate test reports for raw material.”

Here the AS9100 standard is saying that if there is data (physical/chemical values) it must be compared to the requirements of the applicable specification. The valued must fall within the requirements of the specification.

The last line also requires that samples of raw material must be independently retested to assure that the data in the suppliers test report is valid. Not all test reports need to be validated but a process for assuring your suppliers test reports are correct must be in place.

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The OP says he's doing all of that, no? It still appears that there's no foul.

Re: 7.4.3 Verification of Purchased Product (audit Finding)

Thank you for your input.
We do not purchase much variety with regard to raw material. Mostly aluminum per AMS-QQ-A-225/6 and stainless to AMS-QQS-763.
I think that it will be easy to have a person review the cert to the specs, place a checkmark next to what was ckecked, and stamp the cert as objective evidence of review.
What do you think?

Re: 7.4.3 Verification of Purchased Product (audit Finding)

J Allen said:

Thank you for your input.
We do not purchase much variety with regard to raw material. Mostly aluminum per AMS-QQ-A-225/6 and stainless to AMS-QQS-763.
I think that it will be easy to have a person review the cert to the specs, place a checkmark next to what was ckecked, and stamp the cert as objective evidence of review.
What do you think?

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I should have prefaced my previous comment with the standard disclaimer that I'm not an AS9100 expert. I'll defer to the folks here who actually know what they're talking about.

Re: 7.4.3 Verification of Purchased Product (audit Finding)

J Allen said:

I think that it will be easy to have a person review the cert to the specs, place a checkmark next to what was ckecked, and stamp the cert as objective evidence of review.
What do you think?

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I think it is a typical approach of aerospace auditees: Bite the bullet, patch the procedure to satisfy an external auditor and create a non value added task. Repeat this over several audits and you have a totally dysfunctional system. On a previous post, you had mentioned that, with the audit over, you could focus on what is important. Is this task important to your organization?

In aerospace the verification of the validility of the material certifications is a univereral expectation. From the FAA thru the Primes.
While in a good and pure world the Cert is all we should ever need, if we were to realy look at who is actualy performing actual verification to generate them it may be the computer at a shiping clerks desk.
I personaly think this requirement should be based on the due diligance of what you did to review and approve the supplier to supply the materials.

andygr said:

In aerospace the verification of the validility of the material certifications is a univereral expectation. From the FAA thru the Primes.
While in a good and pure world the Cert is all we should ever need, if we were to realy look at who is actualy performing actual verification to generate them it may be the computer at a shiping clerks desk.
I personaly think this requirement should be based on the due diligance of what you did to review and approve the supplier to supply the materials.

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I agree to a point but, you should still randomly select materials once a year and send these one or two items out for a third party verification.

Best regards,

al40

Just an observation here - Sidney posted the actual language used in AS9100. He also gave a very informed comment that "you do NOT have to review/scrutinize each parameter of the certificate, received by the supplier.".

I think we sometimes tend to complicate things too much and end up shooting ourselves in the foot.

To start, Sidney's quote and comments were spot on. There is no requirement to review/scrutinize each parameter of the certificate, received from the supplier - period. If you are using TEST REPORTS (not certificates), those must be verified that the results are within the specifications. Is it a good idea to verify the numbers on the certificate once in a while? Sure, why not, but there is no requirement to do so.

Also, there is no requirement that annual testing be done by a third party. The requirement is that you PERIODICALLY validate test reports for raw material. The timing and method of this validation is up to you unless specified in your customer contract which is a different issue.

One last comment - as with any standard, the requirements are stated as a minimum. Obviously if your customer has specific requirements, those would also apply. When dealing with interpretations we often include customer requirements that have become part of our "way of life". When a specific clause in a standard is discussed, we need to address only the clause and not add in our own preference as to "how we do it".



Dave