Records of Premium Freight (4.6.2.2)

As stated in the QS9K 3rd Edition, "Records of premium freight shall include both supplier and subcontractor paid charges."

This sounds deceptively simple, but is endlessly complicated. My concern is that I may not know when my subcontractor is shipping under premium freight at his cost. He may have missed the normal shipping schedule and now wishes to expedite shipment to maintain his 100% On-Time delivery performance. When the shipment arrives, there is nothing on it or the packing slip that may indicates "Premium Freight."

Can anyone share how your company is tracking subcontractors' records?

[Marc]

The only thing I can suggest is the 'Sanity' rule. That is, track what you can and leave the rest. I doubt your registrar will like this answer, however I wouldn't hesitate to call and ask what their 'expectations' are.

You can require (Ugghhh!) your supplier(s) to submit monthly Premium Freight reports to you.

[Tom Goetzinger]

One thought is that you might have your receiving department log/flag/mark/track any shipments that come in via a premium method.
By comparing the information to your Premium Inbound Freight records, you could determine what you haven't captured yet. We're not quite that far in implementing yet, so this thought is all theory at this time.
Many companies are not very good at auditing inbound freight charges which are added to invoices for material; I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the guy who is shipping via premium methods to protect his 100% on time delivery performance is charging you for the premium freight. Not saying the supplier is dishonest, just may not have the mechanism in place to invoice the freight differently.
I'm glad this question was raised, as its something I hadn't addressed yet. Hope to see some input from some of those who have passed their certification audits.


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[Marc]

Thanks for the input Tom! Good ideas!

Yes, thanks, Tom. I will check to see if the inbound freight charge reflects the premium that they (we?) are paying. One thought was to note that if the carrier is different then it is worth the investigation... but I didn't want to get into generating a list of common carrier each subcontractor is using. However, most subcontractors use freight services that also expedite shipments, so premium freight still comes in under the same carrier.

A brainstorming session came up with the idea of making the subcontractors responsible for maintaining the records of premium freight shipped at their cost. If the auditor asks for the record, we will simply call the subcontractors to send us their records. Will this work, QS9K gurus?

[Marc]

I should think so. Or....

You can require (Ugghhh!) your supplier(s) to submit monthly (quarterly?) Premium Freight reports to you.