Let’s say you’re making aerospace cookies. You have a proprietary formulation for the cookies. The customer buys the cookies to their specification, which deals primarily with size, texture, taste, and packaging, and does not specify any raw materials to use.
The customer mandates 7 year record retention for their orders. You flow the requirement down to your suppliers: eggs, milk, butter, sugar, chocolate chips and the like. They notify you that they keep records for 3 years only and ask for relief from the requirement.
First, are you required to pass the requirement down to your suppliers? The basis for a “no” response might be that the cookies are “created” at your cookie plant, the raw materials used are not specified by the aerospace customer and yours are the only requirements for the raw materials. A “yes” response might be the “down to the dirt” apothegm. That seems unwarranted to me, since the aerospace company is buying cookies you created from proprietary raw materials. None of the raw materials were specified by the customer, just the cookies. As long as you have all your records and meet the customer’s requirements, to me that should be sufficient in this case and it is unnecessary to flow down the record retention requirement.
Second, are you justified in granting a waiver to the suppliers without customer approval (a burdensome requirement since you sell your cookies to many different aerospace customers)?
What say you?
The customer mandates 7 year record retention for their orders. You flow the requirement down to your suppliers: eggs, milk, butter, sugar, chocolate chips and the like. They notify you that they keep records for 3 years only and ask for relief from the requirement.
First, are you required to pass the requirement down to your suppliers? The basis for a “no” response might be that the cookies are “created” at your cookie plant, the raw materials used are not specified by the aerospace customer and yours are the only requirements for the raw materials. A “yes” response might be the “down to the dirt” apothegm. That seems unwarranted to me, since the aerospace company is buying cookies you created from proprietary raw materials. None of the raw materials were specified by the customer, just the cookies. As long as you have all your records and meet the customer’s requirements, to me that should be sufficient in this case and it is unnecessary to flow down the record retention requirement.
Second, are you justified in granting a waiver to the suppliers without customer approval (a burdensome requirement since you sell your cookies to many different aerospace customers)?
What say you?