Nonconforming Material Notifications to Customers

[Greg B]

Greg,

I'm not advocating calling up the customer to say "We had to scrap some parts today, just thought you'd like to know."
But isn't it appropriate to give them a heads-up if you think you've shipped a batch of bad parts to them? Especially if use of those bad parts could result in a lawsuit or, like in the automotive industry, if the customer will bill you for all the rework, scrap, and downtime caused by your mistake.

Like I said, perhaps it depends on what you're making.

I totally agree. If we have let an NC product slip thru the system and it is going to a customer then we are straight on the phone. However, I thought the question was that if you make ANY NC product then you tell the customer and I definately do not advocate business suicide

 

[jmp4429]

However, I thought the question was that if you make ANY NC product then you tell the customer and I definately do not advocate business suicide

Perhaps I read the question wrong.

In addition to making your customer worried about the quality of your product, can you imagine how much it would just plain annoy them if you called to let them know every time you made a bad part?

After about the second time, they might as well be calling you up to say “I had a ham sandwich for lunch today.”

“Ummm….. that’s nice. Did you need something? Was there a reason you called?”

 

[Mike S.]

If you find NC material and it has not shipped I would never see a need to tell the customer (aside from any delivery impact it might have -- if you're gonna be late shipping you should tell them so). But if you find out after the fact you sent them NC product, IMO not calling them and 'fessing up is wrong, and ISO's weasel-words of "action appropriate to the effects..." are also wrong, especially since ISO prohibits you from shipping known non-conforming product w/o a consession.

 

[fuzzy]

What I didn't say...

I didn't say that I wouldn't notify my customer if I shipped NC product.
I didn't say that I advocated knowingly ship NC product w/o concession.

What I did say is that I do not, (still), see a requirement in 9K 2K to maintain a log of customer notification when NC product shipment is detected. That may be a choice among the appropriate actions but not a requirement.

Are we mixing 9K 1994 / QS / TS together here?? I thought the original question came from ISO 9000 and was dated in 2004, hence my focus on the 2000 version.

And weaselly (sp?) or not, the latest version is less prescriptive by intent...don't need to have 3rd parties requiring things that aren't really required (phantom's of the standard, anyone?)

 

[Bev D]

We NEVER admit Non-Conformances to our Customers, unless they ,unfortunately, recieve some from us and then we lauch into the full investigation and apology thing...but to go out of our way to say that we had a non-conformance during production does not benifit us from a business standpoint - at all.
[/I]

let me clarify: I've only notified customers when we discovered that we shipped nonconfomring material to them...there are times when we woudl discover this before they did and we ALWAYS notified them. (except of course when my customer was the consumer not an OEM...then there was alsways the recall vs hidden recall vs jsut repair it under warranty decision). And ther were times when I had OEMs that required notification of nonconforming material when a REPAIR - Aerospace definition & aerospace customer was necessary.

it all depends on the circumstances and the contract with the customer...