Customer Property Identification Requirement - ISO 9001 Clause 7.5.4

[Richard Pike]

Aah, now Jim!

You and I both know that what is documented in ISO (and customer orders and specifications) is not just what needs to be there but also what has to be there to stop people saying: 'But it doesn't say that!'

Yep the Q Rep has to know their Std as a back stop

 

[JaneB]

Aah, now Jim!
You and I both know that what is documented in ISO (and customer orders and specifications) is not just what needs to be there but also what has to be there to stop people saying: 'But it doesn't say that!'

Yes, just so. And because 'common sense' is, alas, often not so common.

Nice to hear from you again Paul - you've been missed

 

[JaneB]

Don't let us forget, also, that the ISO standard is not restricted solely to physical product and manufacturing (at last count, 40% of certifications were issued to service organisations).

'Customer-supplied property' can cover a whole range of stuff, from intellectual property, to electronic data and confidential information. And 'reporting' something to a customer as unsuitable for use can be as simple as phoning/emailing them to say 'that file/data you sent us is corrupted, can you send another please'? And taking due care isn't necessarily 'reporting scrap', but may be related to how the organisation manages control to its IT and network, and / or how it stores data.

You wouldn't, for example, want to have the situation where a bank supplied real data (of real financial transactions for its customers) to a software house in connection with the development of a software system, and someone just chucked away the print-outs of said confidential data in the waste paper. And somehow, they escaped from the dump bin and were found blowing down the local streets. Where they were found and passed to a newspaper, which of course wrote an extremely damaging newspaper report... Can't happen? It did.

 

[Richard Pike]

Don't let us forget, also, that the ISO standard is not restricted solely to physical product and manufacturing (at last count, 40% of certifications were issued to service organisations).

'Customer-supplied property' can cover a whole range of stuff, from intellectual property, to electronic data and confidential information.

Now there's a whole new can of worms. What about invoices and statements, quotations, minutes of meetings, price analysis, patent information, design information - if "information" is customer property ??

And a Service Organization? - they could have millions of Customers- and that would make getting a "waiver" a bit difficult.

Which is precisley my point! Organizations control Customer Property - period - and I still cannot imagine the need to get a Customer Waiver for this - unless we are really dealing with a very silly Auditor and a Man Rep who doesn't understand the intent and application of their Organizations Management System.

Lets see - I think I'll write my Customer a letter asking for a waiver for "this" Customer Property - but NOT for "this" Customer Property and whilst I'm doing that. my CEO will decide that I am no longer the "property of his Organization and will sell me to the lowest bidder.

 

[JaneB]

Now there's a whole new can of worms. What about invoices and statements, quotations, minutes of meetings, price analysis, patent information, design information - if "information" is customer property ??

Hold on - not every single thing relating to a customer is 'customer property'. Common sense here, as everywhere else.Anything that's in the public domain doesn't have to be treated as confidential, for example.

• An invoice or a statement is FROM the supplier TO the customer. It is NOT customer-supplied property.
• Quotations? Again FROM the supplier TO the customer. It is NOT supplied by the customer - it's the organisation's property. If there's any confidential data supplied by customer to organisation in order to create the quote, that should be safeguarded and protected. Again, common sense.
• minutes of meetings? Well, depends on what meeting, who & where, & who's responsible for them. But that should also be dealt with as part of good management of records, etc etc.

I don't really see what the hoo-ha is about here... surely, again, it's all common sense and good business practice?

 

[Big Jim]

Common sense left this thread long ago.

 

[ISO 9001 Guy]

Will a calibration sticker be sufficient?
(We can determine customer by referencing gage# on calibration sticker in our gage management software)

Given the gage number identifying it as customer property, yes, the sticker is sufficient to identify it as customer property.

 

[Richard Pike]

Given the gage number identifying it as customer property, yes, the sticker is sufficient to identify it as customer property.

If we accept that a gauge number identifies adequately - then so does a Gage serial number / cross referred to gauge number cross refereed to where the Gage is used (and who owns it).

Some gauges simply cannot be mrked , but most gauges have a serial number.