Lenght of time that the product is "active" - 4.16.1 - Life of product + 1 year

[Michel Saad]

Hi folks,

Can anyone give me a definintion of "lenght of time that the product is active" as stated in 4.16.1

We are having disagreements internally on this point. Where I worked before, it was stated as "duration of the contract + 1 year", but I am not sure that it meets the intent.

Let me know how you deal with this.

Michel

 

[Sam]

That is normally a requirement established by your customer; includes production and service requirements. Service requirements can be as long as 10 years.

 

[Sam]

That is normally a requirement established by your customer; includes production and service requirements. Service requirements can be as long as 10 years.

 

[Michel Saad]

Bonjour Lyman,

When you say that the product is active in your portfolio, do you include or exclude revisions. What I mean by that is if the part changed from XXXX rev A to XXXX rev B, do you keep the info of A for 1 extra year or do you keep it until the last of the revisions is no longer active (which could be many many years later)?

Thanks in advance

Michel

 

[lyman]

Great question - I admit I hadn't contemplated it when I responded, although after asked I suspected what our position would be given the raging paranoia we have regarding throwing anything away. I went and confirmed my suspicions with one of our Quality Managers - we're going to keep everything (Rev data included) until such time that we are no longer producing the part. My question to you - would you set up your system such that a decision to destroy the records is based on the type of revision being made, i.e., if your changing your labels or labeling info and it requires a revision you're not going to pitch all the prior rev history incorporating your test results, etc., are you?

As you can see - our system will never require us to make those decisions, however, if we ever have a fire you should be able to spot it from Quebec because we'll have plenty of fuel!!

 

[Michel Saad]

Make sure the fire is in winter and we can send you a couple hundred trucks of snow to help put it out!!

We have a 2 revision system. The parts are more like XXX rev A.1. For minor changes, the .1 will move to .2 while for major changes (fit, form, function, reliability), the letter revision will change. We have some parts at F.12 and they have nothing to do with A.1, so I ask why keep the data around? Obviously, we are going to be smart and not throw away material from a previous revision if it is still useful. I am simply looking for a way to not HAVE TO keep material forever if it has no added value. The issue is, does treating a new revision of product like a new product (even though the part number doesn't change) meet the intent of 4.16 of QS9000?

Regards,

Michel

 

[lyman]

I can only speak for myself as an auditor (maybe Marc or someone else can let you know how they would audit to this requirement) but if I audited my engineering/design groups and their system was set up like yours I would expect that they could provide the appropriate new documentation/samples, etc. as required under Sect. III of PPAP. I would also expect that they could show me a Rev history or some linkage between revs. As long as their records reflect their complete current process then if they had documented to destroy prior revision records after the calendar year requirement was met I wouldn't have an issue with that.

 

[lyman]

Bonjour Michel:

The group I formerly worked for, who were QS9K certified in 1998 (and the one that I now work for - who are busy putting our system together for certification in 2001)are writing our retention documents as follows: records will be retained for families of devices or single devices for as long as the device remains active in our portfolio + one calendar year. If you look at the PPAP Manual, Sect. VI (bold printed text specifically, add Sect. 4.16.1.S of the Semiconductor Supplement, in addition to the requirements under Sect. 4.16 of QS9K I think you can understand how we have come to our decision. (QS9K requirements turned out to be one of the great motivators to cull the portfolio at my last job, I'm hoping it will have the same effect here.)

Regards

 

[Marc]

Originally posted by lyman:

...we're going to keep everything (Rev data included) until such time that we are no longer producing the part.

I think this is the key.