TS 16949 Inspection Records Requirements

Currently I am in a debate with a co-worker as to the interpretation of the TS16949 standard. Recently this co-worker (a member of our sample production team) signed off that production employees were okay to run product and not enter any inspection results to our system, because he already knew the product was out of spec from the previous in house process. However, since it was a sample run and he told the operators to red tag and send to hold after the run, it was ok, since he was going to request a deviation from the customer for this sample run anyways.

I say that regardless of whether or not it was a sample run or a production run... and regardless of whether the product was in spec or out of spec, the inspection data should still have been documented and entered to our system for history.

And now, I'd like other feedback as to your interpretation of the standard and what it is requiring.

Thank you in advance.

Re: inspection records

Hello,
Thank you for your post. Your concerns are valid. Can you review your procedure for handling non-conforming products? Does it describe what your co-worker's work practices? How many of these waivers were granted? From what you are saying it appears that the production process is not effective because there are no data to monitor % defects.

Please let me clarify and I hope I don't sound like a stickler but if you have already run the parts you would request a waiver (after the fact).

In my experience, if a waiver was requested for nonconforming product, specific details would need to be included in the request such as actual dimensions, best of the best and worse of the worse. This is important of course for somebody like the desighn engineer in deciding if waiving the spec. would affect form fit or function.