IATF 16949 : 2016 - How put in place a Containment for this kind of Major NC

[Christophe Rivière]

Hello all !

Thank you to everyone for your opinions and advices ! This community is active, it's great !
Again, thank you Andy, Sidney, Golfman and Sebastian.

When I said that my company is a small company, I can precise that in fact we are 96 employees. So, small compared to big companies but ... it depend !

Golfman : to train our Inspectors we use "criteria sheet" which identity the Customer's requirements and specific characteristics. We have also Instructions, Monitoring documents, ... but not really things about knowledge.

I suppose I can challenge the Auditor about this NC and maybe I will win ... but I am sure that his behavior towards me will be difficult.
I can't forget that the Audit report is about 4 Major NC and 7 Minor NC.... I know, what a shame ! First time in my career !

So, I decided to work on this Claim. The root causes analysis is almost finished and about Containment, I will follow your advices guys !
Sebastian : unfortunately, I have to send root causes and Containment for the 4 Major within 15 days .... so, 01 February ! and complete action plan for all NC within 60 days, so, 18 of March ! Such a hard time !

Sorry for my English, I suppose there is some mistakes !

Do not hesitate to add comments ! If I can help someone in this forum, I will !

Je vous souhaite une très bonne journée en provenance de La Rochelle, France !!

 

[Golfman25]

Organization knows how to prepare offer for customer's request for quotation to ensure profitability. Oh, excuse me, Madame Jacqueline knows how to do it.
Organization knows how to find process parameters during production trial to ensure product properties meet specification. Oh, excuse me, Monsieur Jerome knows how to do it.
Madame Jacqueline get married and left company within one week and Monsieur Jerome get sudden stroke and from two months is on a sick leave and probably wont return to work at all.

In my opinion, this requirement was particularly intended for small organizations with poor or lacking corporate culture at all. These kind organizations heavily rely on its certain members. Once any of these members leaves company, it struggles to manage future and sometimes even current jobs.

Dear Christophe, you have two options. One is follow advises of earlier posters and claim "stupid auditor". Second one is saying "Thank you" to auditor and seriously consider risk of loosing organization knowledge due to loosing certain people.
Containment can be, management meeting listing who in organization knows what and whether you are able "to survive" when these persons will leave your organization and how to ensure it. It could be hard to show evidence of maintaining all organizational knowledge within <90 days.

While that may be your opinion, nowhere does the standard require a "detailed list of all knowledge necessary . . ."

To use your example, even in my small company quotations are handled by several people and people are cross trained. Losing a person wouldn't be seamless (never is), but wouldn't be the end of the world either. None of this is documented information, as it doesn't have to be.

The OPs auditor needed to go a bit further in his inquiry to determine effectiveness or not.

 

[Mikey324]

Christophe,

hope all is well. it looks like you have gotten some great replies. To me, a major seems excessive.
7.1.6 states
The organization shall determine knowledge necessary for its operations. This means you can figure out how to do this, so as to work with your company. it will be different because you have 90 people, than if you had 1900 people.

This knowledge shall be maintained and be made available to the extent necessary
You most likely have this in the form of work instructions. Otherwise, how would you be getting the job done?

When addressing changing needs and trends, the organization shall consider its current knowledge
and determine how to acquire or access any necessary additional knowledge and required updates.
This could be in your training or performance evaluation process. For example, you find you need another internal auditor. S/he needs additional training. You determine he must take external training to gain the additional knowledge. That should cover you, in my opinion.

You can review what you already have in place. As long as you can cover yourself in cases, like those mentioned by Mr. Sebastian, you should be compliant with this requirement.

If you don't have these items, i would think that would be a good action plan. Containment can be anything you can put in place to make sure N/G product cant be shipped. Like the case of sudden illness, new job, etc.

 

[Golfman25]

Christophe,


This knowledge shall be maintained and be made available to the extent necessary
You most likely have this in the form of work instructions. Otherwise, how would you be getting the job done?

Why couldn't this be a supervisor explaining how to do something? Or say an old fashioned apprenticeship where the old machinist teaches the new machinist? Do you really need to write it down?

 

[Mikey324]

Why couldn't this be a supervisor explaining how to do something? Or say an old fashioned apprenticeship where the old machinist teaches the new machinist? Do you really need to write it down?

You're right, it could be. Say that supervisor is out for maternity leave, or passes away, or just resigns. That's where it gets muddy explaining to a 3rd party auditor. If you have work instructions, it assures that knowledge is transferable, and subject to revision. Reduces the the need to lean on the guy who has worked there forever.

Not trying to hijack Christophe's thread. I have a feeling he has what he really needs already. Sometimes it's tough to give the auditor what they ask for if they have a preconceived notion of what they expect to find, or else.