Employee Motivation and Empowerment - TS 16949 Clause 6.2.2.4

[Golfman25]

It would not be as funny if it were not true.Corrective Action accepted and finding closed. Reviewed at next surveillance audit and noted as an innovative and interesting (because of answer 3) approach.


Our original TS auditor during our first three year cycle was a big picture guy:

• Scrap cost/Cost of Goods produced = fraction of a percent
• Rework hours/Total direct labor hours = fraction of a percent
• Warranty Cost/Revenue = fraction of a percent
• Active and effective CI/CA/PA system = check
• Knowledgeable and engaged team members = check
• Excellent customer ratings = check
• Nit-pick findings = Why bother?

Because of the TS rules, we suffered through 3 years of checklist auditors (one of the three auditors was banned from our facility by the President) making sure that they got their quota of findings generated on borderline interpretations. These are a bear to answer with a true root cause and do nothing to improve the effectiveness of the quality system.

For the current 3 year cycle, our big picture guy has returned and everything has been smooth. Alas, in 2014, we start our 4th cycle. Hopefully, we can find another auditor who is more interested in an effective QMS than this kind of BS.

Not only that, it destroys the credibility of your system when you start doing things "for the auditor." We have been down that road at it was a miserable experience.

 

[Icy Mountain]

There is an incentive to write corrective action requests because they bill an additional $100 to review each corrective action plan. At least our Registrar does this.

Our bill is done when the auditor leaves so this is not so much a consideration. However, TS does require an extra amount of time on the next audit to review each finding. So, there is still a financial incentive to write findings.

Not only that, it destroys the credibility of your system when you start doing things "for the auditor." We have been down that road at it was a miserable experience.

In 8 years of running a TS registered system, I have spent about 80 hours "doing stuff for the auditor" that has no measurable benefit to the customer or the quality of our product but covers several arcane and esoteric one-liners that TS tacks on to ISO9001. It works out to about 1 hour per month. I spend more time than that each month doing something I call "thinking about what I'm thinking about" while having a smoke. I spend far more time on nearly worthless Level 1 PSW's or doing dimensional prints for electronic products whose voltage levels and fault trip points are far more critical than the dimensions on the slotted mounting holes. Nobody ever asks for the five page electrical test detail so we save thousands of trees and store the information in a database.

Sometimes I really despise being the Quality Manager. Do I sound motivated and empowered? I always answer 3 on the question above.