Supplier Surveys - A controlled document? I say it's a Record

[dbulak]

When I receive supplier surveys, I print out a standardized letter which tells of our ISO certification. In addition, a copy of our organizational chart, general information sheet, an uncontrolled copy of our quality policy manual, and their uncompleted survey is sent to them.

One of our suppliers sent me a letter stating that I did not fill out their survey, and since it is a "document of external origin" I must maintain this survey as a record.

Could someone give me some insights on this.

[M Greenaway]

In my last company we used to do the same thing, answering all surveys with a standard response.

There is no 'must' about retaining survey repsonses.

[Mike S.]

dbulak said:

When I receive supplier surveys, I print out a standardized letter which tells of our ISO certification. In addition, a copy of our organizational chart, general information sheet, an uncontrolled copy of our quality policy manual, and their uncompleted survey is sent to them.

DBULAK,

Regardless of whether there is an ISO compliance issue here I think there is a bigger issue you may be overlooking. Your customer has sent you a survey and asked that you fill it out. You decided that this is too much trouble and the customer should just accept your standard response. IMHO this is an arrogant attitude to be taking with your customer. My advice: Despite it being a bit of a pain in the butt, bite the bullet and fill it out as they ask and also send whatever supplemental information you want. By doint it your way you're throwing a curveball to the customer and they might be taking it as an insult.

To me, it's kind of like applying for a job when they hand you their standard job application and you say "all of that information is on my resume'". Would you do that?

You might want to rethink this one. Just my opinion.

Mike S.

[dbulak]

Mike, I never thought of it that way. I felt that they were actually getting more and returned alot sooner than if I just filled out their survey. Never thought of it your way. Time to think this out.

Thanks

[JRKH]

It appears that you are already ISO certified. Is that correct?

It has been my experience that on most vendors surveys the first question asks if you are already certified to some standard (ISO, QS, etc). If you are they ask for a copy of your cert and that's it. You don't need to fill out the rest of the form.

Its possible that you have been sending them more than they are asking for.

James

[dbulak]

JRKH, you are correct, we are ISO certified. You are also correct about some of the surveys that I get. Some only require a copy of the certification with a few pieces of information filled out. The entire survey need not be filled out. This seems to be the norm for these types of surveys. So I guess in this case what I have been sending is ok. There are some surveys that ask only a small number of very basic questions, so again I think what I have been sending is ok.

This particular survey also included information on their quality rating system for their suppliers. Their survey and the information on the rating system they say are documents of exteral origin.

Would the rating sytem for suppliers that they sent have to be controlled? First time I have ever heard of it. I know they are QS9000. Is this how QS handle this?

[dbulak]

Mike, I never thought of it that way. I felt that they were actually getting more and returned alot sooner than if I just filled out their survey. Never thought of it your way. Time to think this out.

Thanks

[assuranceman]

Many companies send out surveys so they can show they are checking on their suppliers. Surveys take time to fill out due to the the survey details. With a number of exceptions we normally answer a request with a very detailed standard response. If the survey either goes into a file or the standard response answers the questions, we never hear anything more. If an actual filled o survey is needed the customer asks, and we fill out the survey. A request to fill out the survey is very unusual. The bottom line is that we have saved a large amount of a quality engineers time.