Contract Review? Superseding Specifications (Handling)

[QC Rick]

In a nut shell, when dealing with customer Blue Prints (B/P) and the text within including Engineering Orders (changes to the B/P) how do individual companies handle Superseding Specifications (S/S) in that, I mean; when a B/P states a spec that has been S/S what do you put in your PO/Work Instructions/Etc?

So far, I have held employment in the north eastern Mid West (Ohio) and Southwestern (Arizona) territories. Nothing in both territories is different in that companies take verbatim the text on the B/P and apply to the PO/Work Instructions/Etc. without or minimal information of S/S requirements thus leaving all the research to whomever is involved with that particular spec.
In my field of expertise (Aero Space), customers are notorious for not updating B/P's and leaving information trails via S/S specs, a quagmire of information in many cases; the customer declares it is too expensive to update their B/Ps but I believe they fail to see the expense involved for all parties that have to interpret this muddled mess.

Personally I have always believed the PO/Work Instructions/Etc should state the S/S spec and reference the original spec. If the original spec is required specifically, then list it itself.

Example: (Passivation)
AMS-QQ P 35 "Passivation Treatments for Corrosion-resistant Steel".
S/S by SAE-AMS 2700 and S/S for DoD with ASTM-A967 (we actually have a customer who doesn't recognize ASTM-A967 and requires SAE-AMS 2700).
I believe in this case the S/S SAE document is verbatim of the AMS document, only control has changed, 98% of the time our PO/Work Instructions/Etc will state "AMS-QQ P 35", the B/P text.

Your opinions/suggestions and or information as always is appreciated!

[Wes Bucey]

I have moved this thread from the reading room to Misc. Quality Assurance and Business Systems Related Topics because I feel it relates to the business process of Contract Review. Any other thought - please click the "report post button to alert Moderators.

[domingue]

We've run into this before too, especially with that same passivation spec. ( I think they're not verbatim the same. I was just at the SAE G-3 committee meeting in Dallas, and there was a lot of discussion about why they took the big table out of the spec listing what Type to use for what material. Incidentally, that table is in the NASC's Appendix Q, which no one gets to see except the NASC. Awesome.) MIL-C-5541 S/S by MIL-DTL-5541 also comes to mind.

Our instructions list the current spec. We've never had a problem with this since the trail of supersession is there back to the document listed on the print. We deal with a very small range of special processes anyway, so we're all very familiar with the current spec for each of them.

As an additional side note, on rare occasions, some customer wants the old spec, NOT the current supersession. Of course then, we reference that in our instructions.

[QC Rick]

NASC = TSNS (Top Secret Ninja *hit)

Currently, with our entire customer base we deal with 1954 specifications, including S/S documents. It can get confusing very quickly!

[domingue]

Originally Posted by QC Rick

NASC = TSNS (Top Secret Ninja *hit)

Indeed. Good thing we participate in it. I can't imagine how long it would have taken us to get the NAS1924 standard changed otherwise. It took us 18 months to get it through as it is, and we were the ones drawing it. I thought the Primes were slow with these things, but GEEZ - they're like Speedy Gonzales compared to the standards committees.

To the point though, have you found some benefit to mentioning the old reference? I'd imagine it would only serve to confuse as long as it's not to be used in the actual processing. Did an auditor ask you to put it there to make it easier to trace? I'm interested - maybe I'm missing out and I should document that link better.

[QC Rick]

No benefit at all, in fact I believe it is a detriment if anything. I prefer, as previously stated, to list the latest S/S spec and reference the original spec, example: SAE-AMS-QQ-P 35 (AMS-QQ-P 35) "list specific instructions, blah, blah, blah".

Never had an auditor complain, less having to do research to determine traceability, the research is our chief complaint, it is very hard to memorize 1954 spec's.