Supplier subcontracting requirements and Distributor requirements

[Thor1]

I'm having trouble finding this information here. If someone could either give me some guidance or point me to the appropriate thread, I'd appreciate it. I have two situations, both are similar.

1. The first is, we have suppliers that are sub-contracting work elsewhere. We don't know of this until we receive the material in from supplier we know nothing about. Our former Quality Manager and I disagreed on this. I feel that the company we buy the material from is the only one that needs to be on the Approved Suppliers List. It's up to them to provide us with the appropriate paperwork. He felt that any sub-contractor they use should be on the list. This causes a headache when we get an "unexpected supplier".

2. Second, we deal with a lot of distributers for raw material (zinc, magnesium, etc.) What QMS requirements to we require of them. Once again they are responsible for what they supply us but they have no hand in making anything.

 

[preetham - 2007]

For these type of scenario in GM langauge we call it as tier 2 type.
we are also facing same type of situation in our organisation.during this type of scenario we will ask our supplier to submit a PPAP which is conducted by our supplier to to his supplier.it includes material test certificate ,dimensional report etc (supporting documents).if our supplier submit all these documents we can accept our sub supplier as approved subsupplier to us through our supplier.it is our supplier responsibility to asses the subsupplier.

Preetham

 

[Kevin H]

Thor - it would help if you clarify what standard your quality system is baed on - I didn't see this listed in the ISO/TS thread, so I'm guessing either ISO 9001:2000 or?

To the best of my knowledge neither ISO/TS or ISO 9001 require that you track and qualify your vendor's suppliers or subcontractors. (ISO/TS does require quality system development for your suppliers, with the goal that they be registered to ISO 9001 and at a minimum compliant with TS, and that you push this requirement down the supply chain). On the other hand, depending on what your vendor's subcontractor is doing it might from a quality viewpoint be very beneficial to at least identify them. If it's really critical, you might even want to control who your supplier uses for subcontracting purposes or for raw materials. That is an issue you'd need to address with them at the contract review phase.

Again, raw material supplied by distributors - requirements depend on what standard your QMS is based on. If ISO/TS, do a search on supplier development and you should pull up some threads. If ISO, you need to qualify them and make certain they can deliver the quality of product/process you need. You are not required to have them registered to a quality standard. It may be a good idea, but only if it would be a benefit to your business.

You'll probably get more replies tomorrow AM.

 

[sonflowerinwales]

For item 1, under ISO17025, you have to tell your customer if you further sub-contract the process. Some companies have the clause "thou shalt not sub-contract" in the terms and conditions. I would expect the supplier who you placed the order on to deliver the goods with the their paperwork. (Although this delivery may be by the third party) I have sent paperwork to suppliers for delivery to my customer in the past.
Yes, the company you placed the order on should be on your approved suppliers list, their supplier needs to be approved by them. (If permitted!)
Paul

 

[Thor1]

Thank you for all the comments. It looks like you're thinking the way I'm thinking. Our system is a combination of TS16949 / AS9100. We are an aluminum coil and plate mill. The raw materials we get are used to cast ingot for all types of products so we lumped all the purchasing requirements of the two standards together. You can't really seperate these requirements for the two standards in this instance.

 

[Helmut Jilling]

...
To the best of my knowledge neither ISO/TS or ISO 9001 require that you track and qualify your vendor's suppliers or subcontractors. (ISO/TS does require quality system development for your suppliers...

This is what the Product Approval Process would accomplish in TS-16949. You don't go and review your supplier's supplier, but you would review their resulting product.

ISO only alludes to it in 7.3 and 7.4.