Shipping NonConformances?

[Proud Liberal]

I work for a plastic extrusion house that routinely ships parts "to history". That "history" being defined as:
1) approved layout and
2) previously accepted shipments.
Many of our customers balk at the concept of revising old prints or even granting a life of tool deviation.

As the Quality Manager, I routinely grant internal concessions. Although this doesn't jive well with §4.13.2, has anyone successfully argued that the Quality Manager is the customer representative and is therefore empowered to grant such concessions.

I feel like I caught between a rock and a hard place with these older accounts. If you push for the proper changes, you piss off the customer. If not, you fail your audit.

Any thoughts on the subject would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Jim Biz]

Just My Thought - (I'd be REEEEEAL careful with this approach)

Even a "record date of phone communication" between the Q Mgr & an identified customers rep indicating a verbal deviation would be better than seting yourself up for a possible big hassle.

Trying to argue or "justify" internally QA granted deviations "as the customers rep" to an auditor could be trickey to say the least.

I believe I would ask the question... Do you have in place a written statement from your customer giving you authority for the customers decisions prior to granting specification deviations affecting his products?

Regards
Jim

[This message has been edited by Jim Biz (edited 11 July 2000).]

 

[Proud Liberal]

Even verbal agreements are always possible. I came from an automotive environment and find this difficult to work out. The bottom line is that my customers are satisfied and just don't want to be bothered with that "ISO junk".

Thanks,
Zeno (a.k.a. Proud Liberal)