Meeting Feasibility Requirement - High number of part quotes

[jfriess]

Hi,
During our most recent audit, we were advised to revisit our process and timing of the Feasibility. At this time, we quote a part with an informal feasibility review, then before we fine tune a quote for the acceptance of an order we perform the required APQP Feasibility. We do not do the required feasibility due to the number of parts we quote per year for "price shopping". Due to the issue in the audit, we are revisiting our process and plan on performing the review when it is determined that we actually have a "chance" of getting the job. My question is if anyone is currently performing the feasibility process this way and how best to refer to the change in the procedure.

 

[Stijloor]

Re: Meeting Feasibility Requirement - High number of parts

A Quick Bump!

Can someone help?

Thank you very much!!

 

[Marc]

Re: Meeting Feasibility Requirement - High number of parts

I assume the auditor did not actually give you a nonconformance ("...advised to revisit our process and timing of the Feasibility..."). Howard may be able to lend an opinion if he sees this.

It might be an "auditor" thing. It is my understanding that you have to do a feasibility review prior to quote, but I know many companies do an ROM (Rough Order of Magnitude) quote (which are informal) first. If it looks good a formal feasibility study is done and the "real" quote is submitted. That would be your "...when it is determined that we actually have a "chance" of getting the job..." quote.

 

[jfriess]

Actually he did give us a nonconformance. The past process that we had for many audits and passed was to do the feasibility as an order was received. This was performed in this manner due to the amount of quotes that we do for "price shopping"...

 

[Marc]

So - This is a Request for Quote from a potential customer who is "price shopping". Since you are sending an actual quote your auditor is correct. The only way I have seen it avoided is to provide an initial ROM quote when I thought a RFQ was for "price shopping", which I doubt would be acceptable today.

I don't have the latest (2009) version, but according to ISO/TS 16949:2002 Clause 7.2.2.2, “The organization shall investigate, confirm and document the manufacturing feasibility of the proposed products in the contract review process, including risk analysis”.

It used to be that the feasibility review must occur prior to acceptance of the quote. I haven't kept up with TS 16949 (I don't have a copy of the 2009 version) so hopefully someone more current than I can help.

However, I would think that if you're making the same type of parts you could have a rather generic feasibility review, at least by part family, which you could use.

 

[mwohlg]

I feel your pain, jfriess. We got dinged for not having a robust feasibility commitment process during a VDA6.3 audit. Before the finding, we would write up a list of exceptions, assumptions, and conditions that we would return to the (potential) customer along with the quote. But it was only written by one person, not reviewed or approved by anyone else (I tried to show that it was implicitly approved by the manager who submitted the quote; it didn't fly), it didn't say "feasibility" anywhere on the document, and it didn't give a simple declaration of "feasible" or "not feasible".

First we tried to change the title of the document from "addendum" to "feasibility" - that didn't fly either. Eventually we added the bulk of the AIAG Manufacturing Feasibility checklist to the document. It actually saves us some time from not having to type in all the details; we can now check the appropriate box and add a couple of comments where needed.

We're in the same position of getting lots of RFQs from customers who have no intention of awarding us the business, but we don't want to simply no-quote 75% of the inquiries. So we have the "feasible with modification" and "marginally feasible" categories to choose from, basically to indicate to customers that further discussions are needed before we can accept a PO.

I tried to attach a cleaned up version of the form for your reference. Hopefully it's still attached when I click "submit"...

 

[Marc]

<snip> So we have the "feasible with modification" and "marginally feasible" categories to choose from <snip>

Thanks for the reply and the file. What I used to call ROM quotes are what I think you are calling "feasible with modification".