ISO 9001 Requirement Review - Beverage delivery company

[Jarocho]

Hi Eveyone:

I´m currently establishing an ISO 9001:2000 QMS for a beverage delivery company. In general there are delivery routes. Each vendor drives its truck through his route an visits his customers. Once with them he picks up the order and then he delivers. Generally he has enough product in his truck to provide for all his customers. Usually they verify that they can comply, when that´s not possible they negotiate with the customer. When it´s not possible to provide the product, the vendor ask for support from another route, his supervisor or he decides to get back to the warehouse and "refill" his truck so that he can deliver. There´s a policy of always delivering to the customer, no matter what. The problem is that the sales manager doesn´t want his vendors to verify each order and write that down for complying with evidence. He say the vendors have very tight schedules and can´t go around with a lot of papers. The managers says there are so many customers that just putting a small "checklist" to each vendor for each review will imply thousands of paper per month. Any ideas of how to comply without putting a lot o paperwork? If´ve considered the possibility of reviewing the "capacity" of complying customer´s requirements trhough statistical analysis of monthly purchase...HELP

 

[E Wall]

You did not mention the 'frequency' that a driver follows a particular route, so I may be off base here.

My suggestion is relative if you are not following the same route every day:
Can you not go to a 'By order only' delivery system along these routes? This would put the onus on the customer to identify the day or two before what product (and qty) they want delivered. You could always (depending on capacity) load 'extras' to have on hand 'just-in-case' which in my book would also be a plus for customer satisfaction because you would be trying to anticipate needs not just fill orders.

This would allieviate any extra paperwork for the driver. Being someone from the outside, I would also say that under your current system if your driver is following a route, the starting customers would usually be very satisfied while those from the middle to end of the route are left hanging with possibly not getting the product they want.

Regards, Eileen

 

[Jarocho]

Requirement Review

Thanks Eileen for the comments, let me add some more information.

The vendors actually go through the same routes every time, what varies are the customers they visit. Initially, depeding on the requirement of a new customer they establish a visit frecuency (daily, twice per week, three times per week, etc). That frecuency is "improved" internally in order to comply for the customers demands. The vendors have the frecuency of visits printed each day so they know which customers to visit. At the end of the day they must report if they visited the customers and if the quantity they purchased from the vendor.

What you say regarding the customers at the end of the route is actually right. Some times are those who are left without product in case of variation.

Regarding a "pre-order" the problem is that the market is not very stable. Customers are usually pretty small companies and have no formal planning or so. Also their orders depend on their income, if they sell they buy product and some times customers don´t know how much to buy until the vendor comes.

It would be excellent to be able to do that but the resources needed and the market don´t allow for that (some customers don´t even have a phone!) and having someone picking up the orders is not feasible.

My idea of statistically proving for the review, is showing that the weekly or monthly requirement is actually lower that the actual load of the truck...but I don´t know if that will do. Or an on site review at the moment will be necessary

Thanks Again
Luis