Quality adjusting inventory in ERP system

[Rocket27]

Hello,

A general question here coming from an AS9100D company. For product that has been passed through QC's receiving inspection and later found to be non-conforming material (once it is in a stock location), would it be a high risk that the Quality department is now in charge of moving the inventory in the ERP system to a quarantined location?


Further explained.. Non-conforming material is going back to the vendor. The non-conforming report generated is on a seperate ERP platform that does not link to our current inventory control platform. To take it out of inventory and move it to a designated location (to get shipped back to the vendor), someone has to move the failed quantity in the system to the new "failed" location. Would it be a high risk to have it be a quality inspector's responsibility to conduct inventory transactions on this type of inventory movement?

Before we implement a procedure on it, I would like to get feedback or ideas from others on this issue.


Thank you.

 

[Michael_M]

This has generally been my area of responsibility in quality. I found that having one person doing all the tasks makes sure all the tasks are performed. Passing tasks back and forth to someone else can lead to confusion (incorrect lot number, incorrect number of parts, or even just the wrong part number). All this being said, it also really depends on your company and company procedures. Is there something within your company procedures/policy that does or does not allow this?

Edit: Clarified my statement

 

[Rocket27]

This has generally been my area of responsibility in quality. I found that having one person doing all the tasks makes sure all the tasks are performed. Passing tasks back and forth to someone else can lead to confusion (incorrect lot number, incorrect number of parts, or even just the wrong part number). All this being said, it also really depends on your company and company procedures. Is there something within your company procedures/policy that does or does not allow this?

Edit: Clarified my statement

This task would be a new addition to our procedure. We (quality) did not move material into a non-conforming location before. We would just write up the non-conformance on a seperate platform and it was moved in inventory by another department to get shipped back to the vendor. I just know with AS9100 Rev D, risk is a big issue.. so having Quality adjusting inventory, where it is not tied into a non-conformance report, seems to be a risk. If it's a practice followed by others in AS9100 and just having it in a procedure would suffice, I would not be opposed to it.

 

[Cari Spears]

What do you think is the risk in having quality adjust the inventory? What adverse thing might happen as a result of quality adjusting the inventory?

 

[Rocket27]

What do you think is the risk in having quality adjust the inventory? What adverse thing might happen as a result of quality adjusting the inventory?

Sorry, here is more clarity: The inventory adjustment does not tie into a specific lot of material. Only time QC moves inventory is through a quality field (receiving/product acceptance) that is tied into a specific lot in our ERP program, which automatically moves it in the system. The concern here is for a manual adjustment with no lot control. In a sense, we are not rejecting the material in the system, just moving it to a rejected location, but it is not tracing back to anything specific. Maybe it's not a risk. I'm here for advise, given there is more qualified AS9100 members that can weigh in on this.. just an opinion would help here.

 

[Jim Wynne]

Sorry, here is more clarity: The inventory adjustment does not tie into a specific lot of material. Only time QC moves inventory is through a quality field (receiving/product acceptance) that is tied into a specific lot in our ERP program, which automatically moves it in the system. The concern here is for a manual adjustment with no lot control. In a sense, we are not rejecting the material in the system, just moving it to a rejected location, but it is not tracing back to anything specific. Maybe it's not a risk. I'm here for advise, given there is more qualified AS9100 members that can weigh in on this.. just an opinion would help here.

What are your options, other than the quality person doing the move?

 

[Sidney Vianna]

where it is not tied into a non-conformance report, seems to be a risk.

How is this possible? You have uncovered nonconforming products that managed to pass incoming inspection and are now (potentially) disrupting your assembly line and no nonconformance report is created? How do you keep the supplier performance accountable?

 

[Jim Wynne]

How is this possible? You have uncovered nonconforming products that managed to pass incoming inspection and are now (potentially) disrupting your assembly line and no nonconformance report is created? How do you keep the supplier performance accountable?

If I'm understanding the OP correctly, at receiving inspection there's an initial transaction that makes the material available in the system or rejects it--making it unavailable, and generating an NC report. After that initial transaction, when no NCR was generated, there is no way to associate the rejected material with an NCR because there is no NCR. One would have to be generated after the fact, and the question is about making "moves" in the ERP system that will show the material as rejected.

 

[Rocket27]

How is this possible? You have uncovered nonconforming products that managed to pass incoming inspection and are now (potentially) disrupting your assembly line and no nonconformance report is created? How do you keep the supplier performance accountable?

A non-conformance report is generated in a separate platform that does not link to the ERP system. So the material being inventory adjusted in the ERP system is not traced back to the NCR QC created. We could go back to the original reciver and reject it out, but were told we cannot. We have to manually adjust it out of inventory. I assume we can make a memo of the NCR report number generated, but that is it.

 

[Rocket27]

If I'm understanding the OP correctly, at receiving inspection there's an initial transaction that makes the material available in the system or rejects it--making it unavailable, and generating an NC report. After that initial transaction, when no NCR was generated, there is no way to associate the rejected material with an NCR because there is no NCR. One would have to be generated after the fact, and the question is about making "moves" in the ERP system that will show the material as rejected.

Yes, so the non-conformance was caught after it was received through the system.
We generate a non-conformance report (not in the ERP platform) and if it's deemed not conforming and must be returned, QC is told to make a physical adjustment in inventory to take out of stock and move to another location, but it is not linked to the original lot/receiver.