Do I need a QMS and what do I need to ensure my QMS?

[Linxin]

I think the answer to my first question will be a 'YES' from most of the people, even myself. I will still ask this because I just thought about this when I watched a TV show last night. I never watched this until I moved to the US from China few months ago. It's about making customized motobikes. They make really amazing product and get very high customer satisfaction. I was think do they have a QMS in their little shop or do they need one? I suppose they do because I was trained that's how you make good products and consistently making good products.

The second question is actually bothering me more since I am quite new to the quality things. I had been trained a lot on all different kinds of tools we use to control the supplier's quality. Sometimes I wondered, are they too much? Like when you design a product, you put different tolerance there to make the part functional and affordable. Same for quality system, when you design it, you want it to be functional but also suitable. I realized that the automotive industry actually developed a lot of tools to support the QMS, like control plan, FMEA...They all make perfect sense to me. But my question is do we really need that when it comes to a different industry. We build power gen equipments. It is not really like the automotive parts you make hundreds of thousands of them in a year. You really have to depend on your system, because that is the cheapest way to get things under control. If you make only 30-50 of them. Does our supplier need all the fancy tools to get things under control? I hope I can hear from some experts here are not from automotive industry, what is your experience with supplier quality control? Another word, what does the supplier need to ensure their QMS? I am a system guy but I would like to hear different voices too.
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There is a story we always make fun of it. But I read it in a different way. There is a top 500 fortune company who makes soap. They actually put the soap in a soapbox and sell them together. They found a problem that sometimes you will have empty soapboxes that not have a soap in them. They are not detected until the customer baught it and found it. When they got customer complains, they assembled a team immediately with a project manager, a design engineer, a process engineer, a quality engineer try to solve this issue. They worked together for 3 months and spent million dollars to come out with a solution. They upgraded their production line by putting some laser detectors to find the empty boxes and got them picked up by a robot and transferred back to the line to feed with a soap. Everything is done automatically and there was no empty box could get to the end of the production line since then. Problem solved.

Then there is a little factory in somewhere China makes the same product and has the same issue. The owner came to the shop floor one day and gave the operator 100RMB (15USD). He told the operator, I will come back at the end of the week, if I still see any empty box gets to the end of the production line, you are fired. When he came back, he saw two fans were sitting along the production line and running. All empty boxes were blowed out of the production line. The operator was just walking along the production line to pick up the empty boxes. Put them back to feed with soap. Problem solved.

I don't believe this is a true story. But it always reminds me to think 'is there a different way to do it?' when I see things are geting too complicated sometimes.

 

[somashekar]

When you and a small group work with passion, like the motorcycle builders., Salary, time, Cost, Competation, and stuff do not come about. Perhaps the customer is passionate too and works with these guys all round to get what he desires. When you see closely, the QMS elements are happening at every stage.

Does our supplier need all the fancy tools to get things under control?

If the supplier is just making your 30 - 50 of them for you, and nothing else for any other, perhaps he can do away with those fancy stuff. The reality is different, and so the supplier has to put in place some defined process, some critical process validations, some inspection stages to consistently meet your requirements even with changes in his people and his other work loads.

what is your experience with supplier quality control?

Given proper inputs and specifications, assessed suppliers capability and capacity, supplier quality control is as good and clear as internal quality control. Just give it what it takes.

Another word, what does the supplier need to ensure their QMS?

Just like your management support., his management support is utmost essential. Perhaps then good things will flow down with your proper inputs and specifications.

 

[Linxin]

If the supplier is just making your 30 - 50 of them for you, and nothing else for any other, perhaps he can do away with those fancy stuff. The reality is different, and so the supplier has to put in place some defined process, some critical process validations, some inspection stages to consistently meet your requirements even with changes in his people and his other work loads.

That's very true. I always told myself, they got to have such and such in place, I know that is the only way to secure our product quality. The problem is our product is a very small amount of their production. And their other customers has different requirements than ours (ours is higher). They acutally have no problem to satisfy their major customers.

It is really difficult for us to ask them to bring their whole quality system to a different level unless they want to improve themselves for their own benefit.

So I was going to say, okay, you stay with what you have now. We will just put more inspection or process control on our own products. Will that work in your opinoin? I won't start to ask them to do it if I know it is going to fail anyway. (They know how to make the parts, they just keep having issues here and there, small things most of the time).

 

[somashekar]

That's very true. I always told myself, they got to have such and such in place, I know that is the only way to secure our product quality. The problem is our product is a very small amount of their production. And their other customers has different requirements than ours (ours is higher). They acutally have no problem to satisfy their major customers.

It is really difficult for us to ask them to bring their whole quality system to a different level unless they want to improve themselves for their own benefit.

So I was going to say, okay, you stay with what you have now. We will just put more inspection or process control on our own products. Will that work in your opinoin? I won't start to ask them to do it if I know it is going to fail anyway. (They know how to make the parts, they just keep having issues here and there, small things most of the time).

ISO9001 at many places keeps saying "Treat all your customers alike", but many a times this vision of the standard is beaten when the management and hence staff become biased to profit yielding customers, volume yielding customers.
The determination of requirements related to the product, and review of requirements related to the product within the customer related processes should really make you feel comfortable with an ISO9001 aligned supplier .... But ???

We will just put more inspection or process control on our own products. Will that work in your opinoin?

This is more of a fire fighting activity. Rather think in lines of 7.4.3 >>>
Where the organization or its customer intends to perform verification at the supplier's premises, the organization shall state the intended verification arrangements and method of product release in the purchasing information.
Perhaps this will enlighten them about your product requirements and will rise to your levels. The supplier manager will one day very soon come up to you and say,...
Hey., now we know what you need and we will deliver it. Do not take the trouble to come over and inspect every time .....