Contract Review vs. Preventive Action

[Rockanna]

Contract Review - Preventive Action?

How many of you have determined that your "Contract Reveiw Proces" is a preventive action?

Our Contract foks do not see this process as preventive in nature.

Once again, we are fighting the battle of PROVE IT.

Sometimes, I feel like I am running head first into a wall

Any insight (our corrections)?

 

[energy]

Re: Contract Review - Preventive Action?

Originally posted by Rockanna
How many of you have determined that your "Contract Reveiw Proces" is a preventive action?

Our Contract foks do not see this process as preventive in nature.

Once again, we are fighting the battle of PROVE IT.

Sometimes, I feel like I am running head first into a wall

Any insight (our corrections)?

Rockanna,

Personally, I think that taking an order and making sure that we have it right, is a stretch attempting to classify it as Preventive Action. Realizing that Preventive Action is one of those requirements that is open to interpretation, there are plenty of other areas that you can apply it to. Mgt review, Quality Audits, CA, Purchasing (Supplier Evals), etc.. Watch that head banging.

 

[Claes Gefvenberg]

Hi Rockanna,

Making certain that you have the ability to fulfil the customers requirements before you accept the order could of course be considered to be a preventive action. You could also consider it to be one of your “normal” processes. Anyway, you decide what is to be considered preventive action in your company.

We have elected to regard it as a part of our normal processes.

Now, how about going through the contract review process in search for improvement potential, and take action when you find such potential? That action would be truly preventive and I cannot see anyone arguing with that... I guess what I'm really saying is: Pick your fights. That headbutting is harmful

/Claes

 

[CarolX]

where we put it

Hi Rockanna,

We don't consider contract review for repeat orders to be preventative action. But we do consider it part of the process when we develope a new part. We have a checklist we go through to identify potenial problems during production.

Just another way to skin the ISO cat.

CarolX

 

[howste]

Just because it's a normal part of your business operation doesn't mean it can't be considered preventive action. Automotive (and other) companies also use FMEA as a normal part of the way they do business, and the tool is one of the best ways to identify preventive actions I'm aware of.

The preventive action requirements include identifying potential problems, potential root cause analysis, and corresponding actions. If you are doing all of these, why not take credit for it? If you're not identifying potential root causes, then you definitely can't count it though.

 

[Al Dyer]

A robust contract review system clearly fits in with the definition of preventive action:

Actions taken to eliminate causes of "potential" nonconformities or other undesireable situations in order to prevent occurance.

Contract review can't be classified as continuous improvement or corrective action (obviously).

In the case of an ongoing/blanket order the contract only needs to go through a review if there is a change proposed (or yearly review as required) to a contract.

Al...

 

[noboxwine]

Take the credit !

Preventive Action: Actions to prevent the cause of a potential nonconformity or other undesireable situation.

Survey says: YES----Contract Review, if used correctly and in the spirit of adding value to the organization, does indeed do exactly this.

 

[Mike S.]

Preventive Action: Actions to prevent the cause of a potential nonconformity or other undesireable situation.

By this ISO definition, IMO contract review is a PA, at least as we do it.

How do you do it? Why are you doing contract review? What kinds of problems or potential problems do you "catch" during CR? Do you act on the findings you "catch" to prevent something "undesirable" from happening? If yes, isn't that a PA?

 

[energy]

I said it, yes I did!

Originally posted by Mike S.
Preventive Action: Actions to prevent the cause of a potential nonconformity or other undesireable situation.

If you ordered part XYZ, you have already worked out the bugs in previous orders. To continually name this as a Preventive Action means that you are hard up to implement "real" Preventive Actions. If you are a subcontractor making XYZ for a Customer owned product, you have to make sure you do a good Contract Review. (Product Realization). Using the above definition, opening the door without tripping the alarm fits the bill. It was meant to be more proactive than that. Yes, contrary to popular opinion, it is no more Preventive Action than determining Competency requirements. No wait, maybe that is, too!

 

[Mike S.]

Made me think

I agree that if CR is your only example of PA you are in trouble, and CR was never intended to be all of your PA.

With a first-time order from a customer (for a part we never made before) I catch lots of things that, had I not caught them, would or could cause us to be late, make the wrong part, or otherwise do something undesirable, so I figure I'm preventing problems.

But, Energy makes me think... Is determining competency of employees also preventing problems? Yes. Is it PA? Never thought of it that way, but I admit doing it correctly does prevent problems. But does that make it a PA activity? Things get fuzzier for me now.

All I am positively sure of is that CR should not be all of your PA, IMO, and that whether or not ISO would consider CR as an acceptable form of PA, it (CR) does indeed prevent problems down the road so it should be done no matter what you call it.