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BaconLikeItsHot
First timer here.
At my company we manufacture shaped products via hydraulic pressing. Pressed parts then eventually make their way to the final inspection department, where they are subject to dimensional analysis against a part drawing as well as a visual inspection for various defects, regulated by a controlled inspection document specific to the product line. Nonconforming parts are identified with reject codes and segregated from the acceptable parts, and they are placed in a containment area where they are then reviewed by a process engineer. If there is subjectivity in a rejection criterion and the engineer disagrees with the inspector's evaluation, the engineer may overrule the inspector and approve the part. Both the initial rejection and the overruling approval are recorded in our ERP system.
One of the many issues I'm facing as the quality supervisor (I have the functions of the quality management rep without being senior management) is that it's by no means a rare occurrence to see parts that are rejected for dimensional reasons to receive the overruling approval from the engineer following a tolerance change to the drawing. For example the parts were rejected under Revision A of the drawing, but then the engineer initiates Revision B, the parts are reinspected by the engineer, they pass (obviously) and they are approved. It's easy enough for me to discover these occurrences by running a scrap report for dimensional reject codes, then looking for re-approvals of those rejects, and finally checking the drawings for revisions to the tolerances on that dimension over the date range in question. I see this as an ISO 9001 issue for how we handle nonconforming product (we simply say it's not really nonconforming because the new tolerances make it acceptable), and moreover it strikes be as being a lack of process control. When this was brought to management's attention, the response was generally along the lines of "so you're saying if the tolerance is +/- 0.030 and it's only +0.035, then we need to reject it?" Their argument is that in most cases it won't affect performance for the customer, so why throw away all that "good" product? To me, it's obvious that process improvement is more profitable in the long run, but I'm having a hard time convincing the good ol' boys of this.
If anyone has any advice, I'm all ears.
At my company we manufacture shaped products via hydraulic pressing. Pressed parts then eventually make their way to the final inspection department, where they are subject to dimensional analysis against a part drawing as well as a visual inspection for various defects, regulated by a controlled inspection document specific to the product line. Nonconforming parts are identified with reject codes and segregated from the acceptable parts, and they are placed in a containment area where they are then reviewed by a process engineer. If there is subjectivity in a rejection criterion and the engineer disagrees with the inspector's evaluation, the engineer may overrule the inspector and approve the part. Both the initial rejection and the overruling approval are recorded in our ERP system.
One of the many issues I'm facing as the quality supervisor (I have the functions of the quality management rep without being senior management) is that it's by no means a rare occurrence to see parts that are rejected for dimensional reasons to receive the overruling approval from the engineer following a tolerance change to the drawing. For example the parts were rejected under Revision A of the drawing, but then the engineer initiates Revision B, the parts are reinspected by the engineer, they pass (obviously) and they are approved. It's easy enough for me to discover these occurrences by running a scrap report for dimensional reject codes, then looking for re-approvals of those rejects, and finally checking the drawings for revisions to the tolerances on that dimension over the date range in question. I see this as an ISO 9001 issue for how we handle nonconforming product (we simply say it's not really nonconforming because the new tolerances make it acceptable), and moreover it strikes be as being a lack of process control. When this was brought to management's attention, the response was generally along the lines of "so you're saying if the tolerance is +/- 0.030 and it's only +0.035, then we need to reject it?" Their argument is that in most cases it won't affect performance for the customer, so why throw away all that "good" product? To me, it's obvious that process improvement is more profitable in the long run, but I'm having a hard time convincing the good ol' boys of this.
If anyone has any advice, I'm all ears.