Is a Corrective Action required for each major/minor Tool Repair?

We have about 300 individual injection molding tools that produce 500 different part numbers.
Now that we are AS9100 certified there is a push to have each minor/major tool repair become a corrective action. This would generate an enormous amount of paperwork. I say that ?worn or damaged tooling that is making a non-conforming part does not necessarily constitute a C/A?. The tool will wear or may get damaged again making the C/A ineffective.
Does anyone have any past experience with this?
Sarasota Mike

Re: Corrective Action and Tool Repair

mlaurie said:

there is a push to have each minor/major tool repair become a corrective action.

Click to expand...

A clear misapplication of the AS9100 standard requirement for corrective action, for sure; as you said yourself, tools do wear out; so, you can't prevent that from happening. What you should be focusing on is, PREVENTING nonconforming parts from being produced due to NORMAL tool wear and you can accomplish that with a robust preventive (& predictive) maintenance program. How is your tool condition check process working by the way?

Re: Is a Corrective Action required for each major/minor tool Repair ?

In addition to Sidney's remarks, I would add that corrective action might be in order if something causes abnormal tool breakage or wear.

IMO, that is completely overburdensome and will render your corrective action system worthless. If it is a routine repair I wouldn't worry about it. I would be more selective as to what is put into a formal corrective action.

We are 60 days in with our certification, some are wondering why everything isn't fixed yet. Currently there is no preventive (& predictive) maintenance program as of yet. I suggested we start a Tool History Log and track # of setup, # of cycles of the tool against wear and breakage, among other things. Excel SS is fit for the immediate purpose but I haven?t research if purchased software is needed.

We are in the stamping business and tools wear down and need sharpening and sometimes replacement. We have never considered writing a Corrective Action for this. It is just a normal part of the function. Since the people at your facility want everything done now, why not have a Management Review and initiate some form of Gap Analysis to determine what is to be achieved. Once you have a firm handle on what your goal is, you can quantify the steps needed and and then measure your progress. Just "fixing problems" is not a goal. To be a goal something has to be attainable and you have to know when you have or have not met that goal.

Thanks to everyone for your help

Not diminishing all the above --

Injection molding tools should be normally wearing very little, if they are properly designed, built and maintained (if the first 2 are done right, not a lot of routine maintenance would be required). The problem is that doing it right costs lots, so in most cases tool quality is compromised for lower costs (sometimes in the bigger picture it actually costs more, but top managers sometimes fail to understand that).

Starting a tool status monitoring and recording system is a very good idea. If you don't have good reliable info, how would you make good decisions?... If you realize after a while that certain tools break more than the average (or some other criteria you decide upon), you could start a CA to either change your preventive maintenance plan on these tools, design and implement a substantial change to the tool to address the excessive wear, or look into designing and building a new, better tool.

Cheers,
Ronen.

PS Tools used to mold resins which they were not designed for (e.g. high GF content) could wear out more rapidly. Mishandling during setup and production runs could contribute as well.