Level II Containment or CS2 Controlled Shipping Level 2

[Amy]

Outside of the Big 3, can anyone initiate Controlled Shipping-Level 2 (CS2)? It was my understanding that if a non-conforming part reached one of the Big 3, than they could initiate their containment measures. But, if a part did not reach one of the Big 3, it only reached Tier 2 Supplier, could they initiate Level II Containment on their supplier? Please help!!!

Amy

[D.Scott]

Hi Amy - welcome to the Cove.

The short and not so sweet answer is - your customer can do pretty much what they want to depending on how much you value them as a customer.

One thing to consider - your customer may have gone through level 2 containment and is "gun shy" whenever they encounter a problem that could get them back on. Or maybe they are still on in connection with another part/product.

Realistically, if you really did send a gross nonconformance to your customer, and they were concerned about sending it on to their customer (rightly so), they would want to 100% inspect all your parts. Should they have to pay for the additional inspection? You have shown that your controls aren't good enough to keep the nonconformance from going to them so what choice do they have? Using a 3rd party inspection and charging you is about all that's left.

Look at your controls, come up with some "fail safes", do some statistical documentation of your own and go to your customer with a plan for you to eliminate the nonconformance.

Today's business with charge backs and 3rd party inspections points out the advantage of spending some of the "cost of quality" on prevention. It is proving the theory that one dollar spent on prevention is worth 100 dollars of appraisal and 1000 dollars of failure (numbers are exagerated but you get the idea).

Once again, welcome to the Cove.

Dave

[Bill Ryan]

The short and not so sweet answer is - your customer can do pretty much what they want to depending on how much you value them as a customer.

Hi Amy, and welcome,

Unfortunately Dave is absolutely correct. My company has just been "relieved" of CS-2 as a Tier 1 to GM. That same day we were put into CS-2 as a Tier 2 by a Tier 1 customer.

Management made the decision that this customer was important enough to our business that we would abide by the containment "rules". Once that decision was relayed to the customer, they decided to put all parts we (and other suppliers)make for them into CS-1 (a fairly good number of parts!!). Management decided to go along with that also. What that has done to our engineering group is nothing short of remarkable - suddenly every PFMEA is being pulled out and having a "deep dive" review and update. Action items are being assigned (and even being done on time!!!).

While the pace of activity is hard to keep up with, it really is exciting to see the rate at which improvements are being made. I have been harping on the importance of performing the FMEA excersize properly and letting that drive the necessary controls for years. Now I just need 36 hour days to keep up with the documentation aspect.

Isn't it funny that it takes a significant financial hit before senior management decides quality might actually make a difference to the bottom line in the long term? (Sorry, I just couldn't resist that)

Bill