Production Supervises Inspection Department

I work in an manufacturing facility who at least on paper is ISO9001 compliant. (Although recently during a renewal audit 3rd party, the auditor did not hit us only commented on the fact that the inspection department falling under production as a conflict of interest). Well, a few months later low and behold the quality inspection department in now supervised by the welding/machining supervisor, and the former inspection supervisor is now in charge of training. Is this a conflict of interest? The welders will eventually be trained (by the former insp. super) to perform Level II NDT inspections on their own work which is currently soley done by Level II ASNT certified inspectors and have authority to sign off their work, thus eliminating (what production calls redundant in$pection$) We will only be performing sampling inspections, or audit inspections to monitor their progress, never mind a look at our NCR rework historical data shows that more than 40% of the welders work has been rejected due to poor craftsman ship and no we're going to trust them to sign off their own work?

In small circles in our facility we believe production is ultimately trying to eliminate quote "true inspectors" and replace them with operator inspectors or in-process inspections.

Is this a common practice? I originally come from an aviation background where this would be a no-no but, as we are in a non-regulated industry it seems as though (they) can do what they please without regard.

I know ISO states that an entity shall not audit it's own process. In this case isn't inspection an audit and thus welders are auditing/inspection their own work a non-compliance within ISO?

Any comments plase?

In my understanding, inspection and audit are differently regarded: one can't audit one's self--that would be a conflict of interest as per the standard.

But unless there is a specific call out against it, if self inspection works I see no reason why it can't be done. Final inspections and their followups are done at the behest of standards, ranging from internal to customer to regulatory like FAA.

But indications are that there are problems with the self inspection; therefore the system should recognize that the self inspection plan needs to be improved. It sounds to me like some little feifdoms are being developed so as to reduce that pesky QA person always butting in where real work is getting done... If that is not happening even though attention is being brought to it (is it being exposed as a problem?), it speaks to me of system rot and should be addressed at the program level.

Level II NDT inspectors should be certified by a Level III entity, either in house or externally. That Level III should be a non-production person, to reduce potential conflict of interest.

Unless you add each inspection to your internal audit schedule it unlikely your going to have a non-conformance raised against 8.2.2 of the standard.

You are obviously worried that welders will approve their work, where it would have been failed by your inspectors in the past, is there any where further on in the porcess where this non-conforming product will be identified?

If there is and they start identifying increased amounts of non-conforming at this latter stage you could raise a non-conformance against 6.2.2 on the grounds of competence as you would also see a reduction in the amount of non-conforming product being identified in the inspections.

Obviously this isn't ideal as you are having to wait for things to get worse first. In this situation I would be arranging a meeting with senior management and explain to them my concerns.

Good luck, sounds like you have some interesting times ahead.

I agree with Jennifer and chergh and, in fact, many, if not most, companies are going to operators inspecting their own work. It is not an "audit", per se, but rather a "verification" that the operation they are performing is meeting required quality levels. If there is a difference between what your "inspectors" call "good" and what your operators call "good", you have a training issue (and not a readily resolved one in my experience). It almost sounds like you have a culture of "get the parts out the door - no matter the quality". That is tough to change and nigh impossible without management driving it.

As far as "quality" reporting to a production department, I've seen many companies going that route (in fact our company has been restructured that way). While I still have misgivings about it, if "quality" truly is important to everyone in the company, the pecking order of reporting to whomever really shouldn't matter. The bottom line is getting product to your customer that is "fit for use" and if that's not driven home to all, an automomous "quality" department isn't going to make much difference.

As always - JMHO

I agree with Bill,

I have been working as an QE/QM for a small company and the first thing we did was establish our manufacturing cells to perform in-process inspections and save the final inspection by QC for visual and final testing only.

This has saved us a lot of time and money and it's managed by the production supervisor in a value stream. All internal audits are conducted by personell outside the production flow, i.e. design engineer, purchasing dept, etc. This allows me and our QT to focus on quality related processes and dealing with customer issues.

We have not had any major findings from external audits and no negative complaints from anyone on the current workings. We have established work instructions and routers that require the clear identification of person(s) doing the in-process inspection and releasing product it works great if managed properly.


Allen

gard2372 said:

I know ISO states that an entity shall not audit it's own process. In this case isn't inspection an audit and thus welders are auditing/inspection their own work a non-compliance within ISO?

Any comments plase?

Click to expand...

ISO 9001:2000 does not state that the auditor has to be independent of the process they are auditing, that is was it used to say. Is it good practice to audit your own work not really, is it allowed yes.

Aaron Lupo said:

ISO 9001:2000 does not state that the auditor has to be independent of the process they are auditing, that is was it used to say. Is it good practice to audit your own work not really, is it allowed yes.

Click to expand...

Not to argue, nor to parse words, but...

“Selection of auditors…shall ensure objectivity and impartiality of the audit process. Auditors shall not audit their own work.”

The only issue I have is your last sentence: “Is it good practice to audit your own work not really, is it allowed yes.” I would agree if the word “work” was replaced with the word “area”, or “department”. As it reads, it sounds to me like it is contradictory to the standard.

My take on things:

If ISO 9001 compliant, you can inspect your own work, you cannot "audit" your own work.

I have been in companies where operator self-inspection has worked pretty well, and where it has been a disaster. Sounds to me like gard's company is more like the latter. It takes a special culture for it to work.

db said:

Not to argue, nor to parse words, but...

“Selection of auditors…shall ensure objectivity and impartiality of the audit process. Auditors shall not audit their own work.”

The only issue I have is your last sentence: “Is it good practice to audit your own work not really, is it allowed yes.” I would agree if the word “work” was replaced with the word “area”, or “department”. As it reads, it sounds to me like it is contradictory to the standard.

Click to expand...

Boy do I have egg on my face you are right! I mis-read the standard!!

Self "final" inspection

I agree with Allen. We have been incorporating "controlled Processes" that, once a job has been deemed good, we document the process. That is, what machine the work was done on, the machining program worked properly, correct tools were used....etc. At that we engineering, machining, and quality establish key features for operators to inspect, and the frequency of that inspection.

We continue to perform a FINAL inspection process that takes place within the ISO9001 guidelines.

As has been said before, you cannot be the "final" inspection source of the work you are performing.

Two things will ineveitably happen. 1. Customers that require the ISO9001 certification, by some means (supplier survey possibly), will go elsewhere if that type of inspection process, and reporting structure continues. 2. You will inevtibaly lose the ISO9001 certification. Both take time the eventually occur, but will most certainly happen.

I have been involved with quality for nearly 30 years, and have seen and heard of both the loss of customers and the certification.

A very difficult thing to recover for a company to reecover from...if not (unfortunately) impossile to recvoery from.

Mike