How can the management of a company virtually ignore TS16949 for 50 weeks per year?

[Kales Veggie]

Re: How can the management of a company virtually ignore TS16949 for 50 weeks per yea

No management review for the last 4 years, all have been made up by the quality manager. PPAP's, dimensional reports, 8d reports, internal 8d reports, product audits, process audits, training files, cost to quality, PPM scores, macro tests are just a few of things that we make up.

I am part of the problem, but at the end of the day i can only do what i am allowed to do in the time allotted.

I mean how long do you guys get to do a full ppap from scratch? We regularly get less than a couple of hours. Believe it or not sometimes you do not even get a part at all.

It is the only place i have worked the quality department do not have the final say on if a job will run or not. To me it has always been black and white, right or wrong. To my bosses its 10% black,10% white and an 80% grey area.

It's a crazy world we're living in.

Sounds your Quality Manager has lots of time to "make up" documents. It is impossible to do so. The records TS requires can not be just "made up". (audit plans, drawings, ordering parts and MRO items, internal audit reports, corrective actions, calibration, process records, records for N/C product, training, work instructions, control plan, fmea, ppap documentation, maintenance, and many more). It is impossible to make these up !

It is very easy for a good auditor and a good Supplier QE to find holes in "created documents".

How is your customer satisfaction (PPM, delivery)?

 

[Jen Kirley]

Re: How can the management of a company virtually ignore TS16949 for 50 weeks per yea

No management review for the last 4 years, all have been made up by the quality manager. PPAP's, dimensional reports, 8d reports, internal 8d reports, product audits, process audits, training files, cost to quality, PPM scores, macro tests are just a few of things that we make up.

I am part of the problem, but at the end of the day i can only do what i am allowed to do in the time allotted.

I mean how long do you guys get to do a full ppap from scratch? We regularly get less than a couple of hours. Believe it or not sometimes you do not even get a part at all.

It is the only place i have worked the quality department do not have the final say on if a job will run or not. To me it has always been black and white, right or wrong. To my bosses its 10% black,10% white and an 80% grey area.

It's a crazy world we're living in.

This is unfortunately not a new thing. During the Ford Explorer tire blowout debacle, many people pointed to the fact that the Decatur tire manufacturing plant was QS9000 certified. "How can they be certified and still have these problems?!" people demanded. Their sense of outrage was not appeased when I responded the registrar is there to verify compliance using what's shown to him/her. The 3rd party audit is a high altitude kind of assessment. You know where the bodies are buried, so to speak, but the registrar doesn't.

When the auditor arrives and asks for records of management review, it's easy to show "evidence" that was just cooked up the week prior. But Management Review should feed into system planning and allocation of resources as per 4.1. One of the outputs, according to TS16949 5.6.3c) refers to resource needs. If the auditor never reviews that "Act" part (from the Plan-Do-Check-Act structure of the review process), in my view the system is not getting a complete assessment.

What's happening with internal audits? The internal audit program should be rigorous enough to identify dysfunction issues and drive to resolution. But a third party auditor is not necessarily going to find the internal audit program fails to "blow the whistle" on practices you are referring to.

Over a period of 5 years as internal auditor at my workplace I have seen incremental improvements in methods and attitudes. Some of it was based on my influence, and some of it was based on changes in management, who always has the last word in this kind of thing, including whether or not a job will be run. We have this thing called MRB for problem products, and responsibility for quality per 5.5.1.1 for overall performance.

Living in the "gray area," as you aptly put it, took years for me to learn how to do. It allows me to audit with a long-range view and a sense of perspective I didn't always have. I started out in Quality doing repair inspections on submarines and welding inspections on steam/nuclear systems in the Navy. That was a black-and-white lifestyle that I really missed when I started working in civilian management systems. I was really bothered for awhile, but learned to take the long-range view and I learned to bail when I reached the point where I was losing my sense of integrity and self esteem. Having to do this serves to exhibit what Juran meant when he claimed cost of poor quality costs U.S. businesses between 15% and 20% of revenue.

You're in awfully good company.

 

[xsilver]

Re: How can the management of a company virtually ignore TS16949 for 50 weeks per yea

You are correct to state that internal audits should pick up any weaknesses in the system but here is where the problem lies. Firstly internal audits only show up weakness in the system but only if they are truthful. Secondly even if the internal audits stated ' company does not follow the procedures of any kind ' then the managment would either not care or it would be changed.

 

[AndyN]

Re: How can the management of a company virtually ignore TS16949 for 50 weeks per yea

Secondly even if the internal audits stated ' company does not follow the procedures of any kind ' then the managment would either not care or it would be changed.

Why would management get excited over an audit report that said that? It's a conundrum to them! Audits have to give management more information, that is whether the result was still meeting objectives or not. That makes it easier for them to see what needs fixing, either the procedure needs correcting or the activity does.

I'd venture to suggest that, as much as it seems that management are 'to blame', there are aspects of this system which aren't giving them any value!

 

[Jen Kirley]

Re: How can the management of a company virtually ignore TS16949 for 50 weeks per yea

You are correct to state that internal audits should pick up any weaknesses in the system but here is where the problem lies. Firstly internal audits only show up weakness in the system but only if they are truthful. Secondly even if the internal audits stated ' company does not follow the procedures of any kind ' then the managment would either not care or it would be changed.

If an internal audit revealed this-or-that process is not being followed, a nonconformance should be raised and responded to. If nonconformances are left hanging without resolution, a registrar should notice as long as the sample includes such evidence of dysfunction. If nonconformances are not being recorded, a registrar would not necessarily notice system dysfunction the same way as if finding nonconformances raised but not responded to or closed out.

We in QA can't change everybody - people have this thing called free will, and may only be moved by external forces such as fines, litigation or loss of market share and/or profits. A quality management system is meant to avoid such consequences, but it only serves to do so when adequately deployed.

I have been in the place where I decided I must leave to preserve my sense of integrity, dignity and self esteem. As Brizilla has said, you might also find yourself feeling too compromised to tolerate, and want to move on when you can.