Job Shop vs. Service - Identification of jobs between departments

[Russ]

I work in a facility that regularly does some Job Shop work for other companies in the area including plating, heat treat, and grinding among others. Many times these jobs come in and need to be out the next morning thus they seldom have paperwork until the last minute before being shipped back out. In as far as Identification is concerned, these jobs are currently treated as if they are outside the control of our ISO/QS 9000 management system. Rarely are they ever tagged as to what they are, just moved to the appropriate department for the process that they need. However, this has not been addressed in our QMS, and I'm really not sure how to address it and not open an avenue that will cause us more problems down the road. I'm not sure which is better, not address it officially and have them use a generic "Job Shop" tag or address it and get dinged for the way we handle them? Anyone else have this problem?

Russ

 

[David Mullins]

where's the pulpit?

Russ,
There are others in the forum who work in allied areas, so I'll leave the main comments up to them.
I would like to say that THEORETICALLY you have a QMS to standardise processes and practices as a baseline/platform for improvement. Having these activities outside the QMS puts the company at greater risk in several areas. Surely there are customer requirements to be met, traceability (of sorts) requirements, handling/packaging requirements, etc.

Doesn't it send a confusing message to operators when some jobs need Q standard processes and other just don't matter. It's a rhetorical question - of course it does, it screams "quality is something we do when there is no other way to get around it"!

(Sorry about the sub-st'd typo's - hopefully fixed now)

 

[Jim Biz]

Russ:

We do a small share of the same type of thing: mostly grinding but some machining as an outsource job shop.

Frankly - we never questined how it should be handeled.

Incomming inspection - apply our tag- issue appropriate paperwork as if the job started within our system - inspect - record - ship.

How does a shop justify/explain it is doing "Some work" on materials that are outside it's management system controls?

As far as "how we addressed it in our system docs - after recieving inspection and tag identification - we simply considered it the same as any of our jobs.

Regards
Jim

 

[Al Dyer]

Russ,

Listen to David and Jim, they have nailed it. It is easier to to it right the first time and do it the same all the time. Employees expect consistancy!

 

[Marc]

> Many times these jobs come in and need to be out the next
> morning thus they seldom have paperwork until the last
> minute before being shipped back out. In as far as
> Identification is concerned, these jobs are currently
> treated as if they are outside the control of our ISO/QS
> 9000 management system. Rarely are they ever tagged as to
> what they are, just moved to the appropriate department
> for the process that they need.

This is not aceptable per ISO 9001:2000 as far as I understand it. I would expect it to specifically excluded from the scope of registration if "...these jobs are currently treated as if they are outside the control of our ISO/QS 9000 management system..." is the actual case since it is a product they sell. I agree with Jim.

 

[lrorie]

What jobs are acceptable per ISO 9001:2000 to be treated outside the control of one's ISO/QS 9000 management system beyond design and conrol design document elements????

Are all certifying registers in agreement regarding the use of the litmus test - if the company is selling or making profit from the product (job shop, by-products) and is ISO certified, then these products automatically fall under the company's ISO management system and is audited?????

 

[Marc]

If I understand what you're asking....

The bottom line is a company can register part of the operation if they so choose. This is where the Registration Scope comes into play. If you make two products, for example, you could limit the scope of registration to specific lines and processes. I have seen this done both in ISO registrations and in QS registrations.

You're not relieved of management review, a nonconformance and corrective action system or other requirement, but the actual processes and such outside of the stated scope are not auditable. I saw one plant register the entire plant to ISO 9K except for one line. The line fed another line. Why did they do this? They planned on 'eventually' eliminating the line and outsourcing that assembly operation. They didn't want to spend the time and money to 'update' that line to conform with ISO requirements. It was a real weird situation where there was an intra-management fight going on over several issues - one of which was whether or not to outsource the line in question. The bottom line is they excluded that line from their registration scope statement (can you say verbal gymnastics?). They treated that line (it was just an assembly line BTW) as an outside supplier, technically, doing 'receiving inspection' to in part account for control of the supplier. The line was addressed by relevant supplier requirements.

 

[Russ]

Marc-
We have no such exclusion in our scope. Since ISO 9K2K treats services as products, I feel we need to bite the bullet and include Job Shop services now instead of waiting until we get nailed. Seems like the easier way to go to me, and would be more consistent overall. This system is 4 years old and I just took it over 11/00 so I'm working the problems out that have been overlooked until now. Thanks everyone for your input!

 

[Marc]

That's the way I would handle it. I really have never seen what I considered a sound or smart exclusion. But as I gave in the example above, it does happen. My opinion has been to include the entire operation in the scope. Picking and choosing is sorta silly.

Each time it was driven by a fast approaching registration deadline - as a customer requirement (this was particularly true with QS 9000). In one case it was a matter of a letter from a European government which would stop further shipments at the border after a certain date and refuse entry of the product because the company's product was in a 'safety' class. Many countries now use ISO 9K registration as a requirement for companies to sell certain products in their country. Germany is one.