Customer Identification and Traceability in Manufacturing Plans

[J Allen]

In my experience most manufacturing plans identify who the Customer is. The company I am working has done this for years. Now out of the blue during manufacturing planning Quality review, I kicked back the plan because it identified the wrong Customer.

Engineering now wants to remove all references to the Customer because I am unable to provide what drives the requirement.

I told him in general that it provides immediate traceability to the Customer which is a requirement of AS9100.

Is there a section or other spec that might satisfy Engineering as to why the Customer should be identified on the documentation.

Your input would be appreciated.

 

[Marc]

Re: Customer Traceability - Identification in Manufacturing Plans

My first question is, what, in your company, kicks off manufacturing planning?

My second question is, was there a point in time where manufacturing planning in your company decided to take into account customer specific requirements? In short, it is probable that at some point in time CSP were incorporated into your manufacturing planning for a reason. Do you know when that happened and why?

 

[J Allen]

Contract review kicks off creation of new planning or release of previously made planning for repeat orders. Customer specific requirements have always been placed in manufacturing plans driven by the Customer PO, drawings, specifications, and flow down of specific requirements.

I have reviewed the PO and Quality clauses but there is nothing that states it is necessary to list the Customer's name on the manufacturing plan.

However, having the customer name on the plan provides immediate clarity who the customer is without having to go back from manufacturing plan, to sales order, to customer PO.

Rather than update changes to customer, our engineering would prefer to remove all reference to the customer.
I just cant seem to accept that.

 

[Golfman25]

Contract review kicks off creation of new planning or release of previously made planning for repeat orders. Customer specific requirements have always been placed in manufacturing plans driven by the Customer PO, drawings, specifications, and flow down of specific requirements.

I have reviewed the PO and Quality clauses but there is nothing that states it is necessary to list the Customer's name on the manufacturing plan.

However, having the customer name on the plan provides immediate clarity who the customer is without having to go back from manufacturing plan, to sales order, to customer PO.

Rather than update changes to customer, our engineering would prefer to remove all reference to the customer.
I just cant seem to accept that.

It really is simply a convenience thing. You're argument is "provision of immediate clarity." What is their argument?

Sometimes it's burdensome with very little value. For example, we know what customer just by the part number. Where we don't, a quick search on the computer system is easy to do.

 

[J Allen]

Thank you for your input!

 

[Eredhel]

We identify the customer on our traveler alongside the other information. But there is nothing in AS9100 that requires us to do that. For us, and this is just how we do it, our Job # is the ultimate traceability. With that we can get every bit of needed information.