IATF - Customer Returnable Dunnage

[CTHutchins]

I am searching for verbiage in standards and Supplier Quality Manuals for specifics on customer returnable dunnage.
We had an incident where labeling was left on the customer returnable dunnage. The operator saw the labeling and had mistaken it for being one produced in-house. Because the pallet had 40 individual boxes and each box labeled independently, was shipped back to the customer. The customer saw this and requests a corrective action. Had the customer removed the label once the box was emptied, we would not have shipped the mistaken label back to them. Being in the automotive industry, one would think that the customer would be responsible for supplying dunnage ready for use. Instead, we are being told that it is the supplier responsibility. Who would be correct in this manner on a corrective action standpoint?

 

[ChrisM]

It depends what is in your contract, to a certain extend... but you should have a robust process in place for dealing with packaging returned from your customers including checking to see that it is empty (no product accidentally returned etc), undamaged, old labels removed, suitable for further use etc.

(brings back fond memories of the "pallet park" at some British Leyland sites......)

 

[Ron Rompen]

yes, the customer SHOULD have removed the labels before shipping the dunnage to you. but it still remains YOUR responsibility to ensure that whatever is shipped from your plant is complete and correct. at the very least, your shipping department should not be packing finished product into an empty box which has labels on it - label application should be the LAST step in the process. ChrisM said it better than i can - you need to have a robust process in place to deal with customer-provided packaging.

 

[Miner]

This should fall under 8.5.3 Property belonging to customer or external providers.

When the property of a customer or external provider is lost, damaged or otherwise found to be unsuitable for use, the organization shall report this to the customer or external provider and retain documented information on what has occurred.

Do you check for this when receiving the returnable dunnage? Start reporting this to the customer, maintaining records, and removing old labels as necessary.

 

[ChrisM]

Just following up - another thing to consider is who owns the returnable dunnage? Is it your organization, the customer's or jointly owned? When I worked in automotive, we had a mix of ownership... some was owned by us entirely, some jointly owned in varying proportions. I recall that with Honda (HUM) it was 50/50 so we had a duty to report any damaged or missing stillages etc. There was also an annual reconciliation audit where we had to count up all that we had on our premises, and go to the car factory to count all that they had, which was placed in a special mustering area.

 

[CTHutchins]

Thank you for everyone's input. I'll be the first to state that the current process is not stable but we are working on it.

 

[Scanton]

We use returnable/reusable packaging for some customers and understand that whatever it is made of (wood, plastic, metal etc) it will have a useable lifespan that it completely dependent on how it is used/treated, and as we have no idea how it has been treated once it had left us (unless it is heavily damaged upon return, then we can hazard a guess) we subject these to a more stringent checks than we would to something we had purchased brand new.

Every item is inspected upon return to evaluate its suitability for its next use and this will include a visual check to ensure its structural integrity, highlight any with suspected safety concerns (damage, sharp corners etc ) which would be removed, repaired, or scrapped, we would also remove any unwanted labelling.

This gives us complete control of this packaging and reduces the chance of having issues to a negligible level.

 

[Johnnymo62]

The automotive Tier 1 and 2 companies I have worked for made the Operator that is going to use (fill) the container reponsible for inspecting for damamge, cleanliness, old labels and placards, as well as returned parts.