Customer's Supplier Quality Manuals used by Auditor in a TS 16949 Audit

[dbzman]

Re: Customer Supplier Manuals and TS 16949 Audit

Jim, you are correct from a contractual/legal perspective. It could be one of those cases where the customer has a bad process of clearly invoking all of the requirements associated with a purchasing order or contract.

Many times, a supplier quality manual gets issued and/or revised, and the contractual instrument used in a long term agreement never gets changed to reflect the fact that the supplier manual is now part of the requirements.

Once again, while the supplier might be "covered" from a legal/contractual point of view, if they fail to abide by the supplier manual requirements, now invoked by the customer, they might lose the business altogether.

It is "concerning", imho, when an external auditor knows about the existence of supplier manuals and the suppliers don't. Shouldn't the supplier be very aware of documents such as these? The existence of such documents should be no surprise to the supplier when they have a good working relationship with their customers.

Our automotive customers are a small percentage of our total customer base. Our quoting process consists of acquiring customer requirements that they state must be meet. (Hardness, straightness, etc). If they want us to follow a specific document, whether it is their supplier manual, customer drawing, etc then they must make it know to us.

Our customers are perfectly happy with the work we are doing for them. If they did not feel it necessary to require the use of a “Supplier Manual” (SM) then that is their choice.

Again, now that we know that an auditor will make an issue of this we will address this in the quoting process. It is a very good idea to ask this because the customer may not know if it is necessary or not. IT is always good to be aware of documents that are “hanging out there” that could become an issue later.

One of the customers that we asked about the SM had forgotten that they even had one!

There are many “things” that could be asked and that may not be told to us by the customer. We have some obligation to ask but the customer also has a responsibility to give us all pertinent info and requirements. We try our best to get as much information from them as possible but we are at there mercy.
AS for this audit, the requirement to use SM was not in evidence on purchase orders or in customer quotes.

I believe (whether it is good practice or not) the auditor should not make a determination that we should have asked or that the customer should have told us.

 

[dbzman]

Re: Customer Supplier Manuals and TS 16949 Audit

I agree, but it has nothing to do with the question at hand. I've had instances where higher-ups approved customer supplier requirements without reading them, and when they did they considered some of the requirements unacceptable. But a CB auditor may not invoke CSRs if there's nothing in evidence to indicate that there has been contractual agreement to them.

Good point!

 

[bobdoering]

I have been told recently that GM requirements are QS9000

Didn't GM have their own set of requirements that were once called "Q9000"? Most big three have their customer specific online - and it is required whether you like it or not....but Tiers would have to specify their manual in the purchase order to make it effective, in my mind. Otherwise it is PO and print.

 

[db]

Of course, this makes me wonder...

If the auditor brought his own copy of the customer manual, was it the most current version? How long has it been in his back pocket? Was this a "controlled copy"? This smells to me of a serious document control issue on the part of the registrar.

 

[Audit Monkey]

In my experience, the contractural agreement is often in the fine print in the purchase order. Therefore as soon as the PO is signed, the supplier has agreed to the CSR's. In any case, if you take a PO from a customer, it is common sense to find out if there are specific requirements. I often find that companies simply don't take the time to find out that CSR's exist, don't have a process to ensure they know about and adhere to the latest versions, and/or are so busy that they simply let them lapse.

 

[dbzman]

Part of the problem is where the auditor comes in and starts to tell us what the customer wants or should want. It does not matter that the customer did not ask for it, w are suppose to know what the customer wants.
We must keep a rein on auditor enthusiasm. Is what they have found a standard issue? Is what they have found of benefit? Does it add something to the quality system?
If not, then they need to be told to not perform customer development for us. Could this be construed as “consulting

P.S. the auditor did not have a copy of the manual. He required us to get it from the customer during the audit.

 

[Audit Monkey]

I am assuming that you are being audited to TS16949?

 

[dbzman]

In my experience, the contractural agreement is often in the fine print in the purchase order. Therefore as soon as the PO is signed, the supplier has agreed to the CSR's. In any case, if you take a PO from a customer, it is common sense to find out if there are specific requirements. I often find that companies simply don't take the time to find out that CSR's exist, don't have a process to ensure they know about and adhere to the latest versions, and/or are so busy that they simply let them lapse.

In a way I agree.

Now that we know that this could be an issue (Outside of the contractually agreement that we already have) then we will ask for CM requirements and address them accordingly.

However, if the requirement to follow a certain manual, certification, process, is not in the quote and purchase order the auditor should not be auditing to the document.

Maybe he should have written a minor to our customer for not telling us of the requirement.

I have told our Quality Manager to add this question to the customer so that we can find it if needed and evaluate if it is applicable. IF the customer does not require the use of the SM then we can get a waiver.

This would be good practice in the future with respect to legal issues.

 

[dbzman]

I am assuming that you are being audited to TS16949?

Yes, the auditor limited his samples to automotive orders only.

 

[Audit Monkey]

Hello everyone!

I have a question about out last TS16949 audit. The auditor insisted on using our customers “Supplier Quality Manual” while performing his audit. HE said that the manual spelled out the customer requirements. We only have a few automotive customers so his audit was very focused. We have never had a customer require us to use their manual. Usually, during the quoting process, we ask the customer what their requirements are and they tell us. They never informed us that they had a supplier’s manual.

I think that we should add this question to our quoting process. Especially since many companies have these manuals.

However, should the auditor be auditing us to these manuals if the customer never informed/told/lead us to believe that we had to use them?

Thanks!

Sorry, but the auditor is required to audit you to these requirements. If your previous auditors did not do so, they are not doing their job well. If you examine the fine print of your PO, you will probably find the supplier manual requirements.