Configuration Management - AS9100 Requirements

[alecrene]

Hello, this may be a different question than what was originally asked.

I work for a finishing company that does chromate conversion and anodize on aluminum parts, and I am curious how deeply we need to control configuration at our stage of the process.

For instance, when a customer wants a certificate of conformance but does not want to provide us with drawings, are we able to certify that part without drawings? It seems simple enough as they have sent and identified the parts they want worked, we identify the parts and keep track of them as they go through the shop, and ship them back certifying only that they have anodized what they sent us. There are many reasons customers might not want to provide drawings -- for instance not all customers are aerospace customers, or the drawings might contain sensitive or proprietary information that they do not want to send out.

What are the hard and fast rules here in this narrow instance?

 

[Wes Bucey]

Hello, this may be a different question than what was originally asked.

I work for a finishing company that does chromate conversion and anodize on aluminum parts, and I am curious how deeply we need to control configuration at our stage of the process.

For instance, when a customer wants a certificate of conformance but does not want to provide us with drawings, are we able to certify that part without drawings? It seems simple enough as they have sent and identified the parts they want worked, we identify the parts and keep track of them as they go through the shop, and ship them back certifying only that they have anodized what they sent us. There are many reasons customers might not want to provide drawings -- for instance not all customers are aerospace customers, or the drawings might contain sensitive or proprietary information that they do not want to send out.

What are the hard and fast rules here in this narrow instance?

As I understand from your post (correct my impression if I'm wrong):
your company is essentially acting as a job shop on lots of products made or owned by your customers. The customers give you a purchase order with minimal specifications for the coating you are to apply to their product. The certificate of conformance they "probably" want is merely a statement that the coating adheres to a chemical formula and that it is applied to "X" thickness on the product.

The configuration management in this case would be that you are following a specific process for applying anodizing of a specific type and that your process has not changed since you did it before. If you do change the process in any significant way, that's a change that has to be recorded and disseminated to all concerned parties, including present and future customers who ask for that process. (this means a change which is to continue going forward on all new orders Or a temporary "exception" for a specific order.)

If the customer's purchase order has some critical dimensions that have to be kept or attained, then you will have to record an "exception" to your regular process if it means you have to perform measurements or tests you would not normally perform. This is NOT a new change, but merely an exception to your normal process which normal process will resume on any orders not making specific demands. (Be sure to charge extra for such "exceptions.")