AS9102 FAI acceptance - Currently having issues getting prompt approvals

[LukeT]

We are currently having issues with out customer on getting prompt FAI approvals. I am monitoring the FAI activity very closely on the production floor and ensuring that we are capturing the multitude of ECO activity, but we have such a gap between submission and acceptance at the customer it is causing OTD issues and PPM hits at the customer. I have implemented the procedure that no production shall be shipped until the FAI has approval if it is a FULL FAI only. On a Delta FAI the practice is currently that we ship those with the rest of production. Recently we shipped a lot size of ten assemblies and one being a Delta FAI. The FAI failed and therefore there was no accepted FAI at the current revision for the remaining ten. Those were promptly failed as well causing us a PPM hit. I am attempting to implement the new system that all FAI's will require acceptance prior to production shipping, but I am trying to see if anyone else has run upon this?

This is a customer requirement and yet they bend the rules every time they get the chance to get product in. We currently have about 100 assemblies that have been submitted with no customer approval and I have hounded everyone in the facility to get these to no avail. What recourse does a supplier have when the customer is not complying?

Sorry this is so long but I have many questions that management at this facility are not addressing and I am trying to get some direction. Management does not take this very seriously around here. I would also like to know what the consequences are to us if we are found to be bending rules even with customer approval? I struggle with that daily.

Thanks

[Jeff Frost]

Luke

You did not indicate if customer is requiring AS9102 FAI approval before shipment. I do know some aerospace customer are not accepting AS9102A but in both cases the "Original" and Revision "A" issue of AS9102 indicates customer signature is an “if applicable” requirement.

I do know that my organization only holds shipments pending receipt of customer AS9102 FAI approval when we have a hard requirement within PO/Contract to do so. You may only need to place a hold for FAI approval on a select number of customers and not all customer requiring AS9102 FAIs.

Jeff

[Jim Howe]

Originally Posted by LukeT

We are currently having issues with out customer on getting prompt FAI approvals. I am monitoring the FAI activity very closely on the production floor and ensuring that we are capturing the multitude of ECO activity, but we have such a gap between submission and acceptance at the customer it is causing OTD issues and PPM hits at the customer. I have implemented the procedure that no production shall be shipped until the FAI has approval if it is a FULL FAI only. On a Delta FAI the practice is currently that we ship those with the rest of production. Recently we shipped a lot size of ten assemblies and one being a Delta FAI. The FAI failed and therefore there was no accepted FAI at the current revision for the remaining ten. Those were promptly failed as well causing us a PPM hit. I am attempting to implement the new system that all FAI's will require acceptance prior to production shipping, but I am trying to see if anyone else has run upon this?

This is a customer requirement and yet they bend the rules every time they get the chance to get product in. We currently have about 100 assemblies that have been submitted with no customer approval and I have hounded everyone in the facility to get these to no avail. What recourse does a supplier have when the customer is not complying?

Sorry this is so long but I have many questions that management at this facility are not addressing and I am trying to get some direction. Management does not take this very seriously around here. I would also like to know what the consequences are to us if we are found to be bending rules even with customer approval? I struggle with that daily.

Thanks

In all my years of experience I have never heard of shipping production without an FAI approval. Of course the contract between you and your customer may be different then what I am use to. But that is where it must begin, in the contract review stage. There must be a firm understanding of what is required and when it is due.
In my experience the FAI/FAT's were line items on the purchase order with delivery dates and deliverables (product, test results, log books, etc.) The purchase order would state specifically that NO product could be delivered until FAI/FAT was approved.
My single best source to resolve issues of customer failure to approve was the customers BUYER. After all it is the buyer who is responsible for delivery where as the folks (usually QA and design engineers) who are responsible for FAI/FAT approvals are not concerned about delivery.
I would contact the buyer, give him the specific information regarding the product deliveries and the required approvals and in short order I would receive a response of what the issues were or an approved FAI.
Good luck!

[LukeT]

Thanks for the input guys. The PO does not state anything about APPROVED FAI. It does state that a FAI, if needed, should be submitted with or ahead of the production material. There is so many nuance'e to this requirement that the customer finds different ways around things all of the time. I guess from our standpoint I do not feel comfortable sending prodcut without an approved FAI because if it fails we take the ppm hit for the accompanying product, and it is possible that we have a process issue that we need to be aware of.

We are going to attempt to get them to buy into NOT dingning us for the entire lot in this situation. We will see how it goes I guess. As far as the buyer being the contact, HA!!! The buyer wants one thing and the inspectors see something different. We can never get the same sense of urgency from the inspectors that the buyers have.

All the while we fight OTD issues to the customer. This is so much fun sometimes.

[Jeff Frost]

Luke,

It is a quandary trying to please your customer’s inspection personnel but if the buyer did not specify FAI approval before shipment in purchase order directly or through reference to QAR/QAS then any dings on PPM are not justified. The buyer is responsible for flow down of his or her company’s requirements through the purchasing process and not the receiving dock inspector.

If you receive a PPM ding because the customers purchase order (contract) was silent on this requirement then you should request a correction to the PPM rating based on the facts. At my company we are seeing a rise in FAI approval before ship requirement and we deal with this through our contract review process but we do not hold a shipment because the customer could, should or might require this.

If its not a contract requirement we ship because if we hold the order we run the risk of receiving a PPM ding because the order was late.



Jeff

[Jim Howe]

Originally Posted by LukeT

Thanks for the input guys. The PO does not state anything about APPROVED FAI. It does state that a FAI, if needed, should be submitted with or ahead of the production material. There is so many nuance'e to this requirement that the customer finds different ways around things all of the time. I guess from our standpoint I do not feel comfortable sending prodcut without an approved FAI because if it fails we take the ppm hit for the accompanying product, and it is possible that we have a process issue that we need to be aware of.

We are going to attempt to get them to buy into NOT dingning us for the entire lot in this situation. We will see how it goes I guess. As far as the buyer being the contact, HA!!! The buyer wants one thing and the inspectors see something different. We can never get the same sense of urgency from the inspectors that the buyers have.

All the while we fight OTD issues to the customer. This is so much fun sometimes.

This sounds like it is in total chaos! (Your PO lacks a line item for delivery of FAI and apparently there was NO contract review). I am curious asto your top management view regarding the dings and the lack of a firm understanding of what they were to deliver. Good Luck!

[LukeT]

That is funny I am curious too as to top managements view on this also. LOL

Our quality manager has a very good way of "massaging" then numbers so I am not even sure if it ever gets past him. It is very difficult to work like this believe me. Thanks for your input to this post I will post more if it becomes available. Thanks