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Thanks for the advice again. Yes, we're trying to learn lessons from this case and understand the general principles.
Of course, right now the supplier is willing to bear half of the loss but our upper management doesn't agree. It wants the supplier to absorb all the loss because the failure is for sure due to supplier's nonconformance to the spec.
I agree with you that we should treat the supplier as an ally and jointly look for the root cause of the failure. However our upper management wants to enforce the general principles to the supplier so that they will learn a hard lesson as well. The supplier is offshore and quality control isn't as strictly enforced as in U.S. even it is certified by TUV and audited by our QA team.
If they continue to think their nonconformance to spec doesn't expose them any liability, they wouldn't take the lesson very seriously. As I mentioned earlier, if the loss is very big, our company will sue the supplier for sure.
Therefore if our supplier understands that by signing PSW it is liable for any nonconformance to spec, they would be very careful. Many people in our organization strongly believe that the supplier would lose the case had we taken it to the court. I believe too. Do you?
Of course, right now the supplier is willing to bear half of the loss but our upper management doesn't agree. It wants the supplier to absorb all the loss because the failure is for sure due to supplier's nonconformance to the spec.
I agree with you that we should treat the supplier as an ally and jointly look for the root cause of the failure. However our upper management wants to enforce the general principles to the supplier so that they will learn a hard lesson as well. The supplier is offshore and quality control isn't as strictly enforced as in U.S. even it is certified by TUV and audited by our QA team.
If they continue to think their nonconformance to spec doesn't expose them any liability, they wouldn't take the lesson very seriously. As I mentioned earlier, if the loss is very big, our company will sue the supplier for sure.
Therefore if our supplier understands that by signing PSW it is liable for any nonconformance to spec, they would be very careful. Many people in our organization strongly believe that the supplier would lose the case had we taken it to the court. I believe too. Do you?
Many companies look at the APQP & PPAP process as something that Quality guys have to do before they can ship parts, instead of their opportunity to identify potential issues and work to eliminate them. This is something that needs to be clearly understood by the management team. They have culpability for this because they are supplying the assembled part, along with having accepted the responsibility for the Quality Planning processes that are needed for their supply base when they selected the supplier.