LEADAUDITOR said:
Our mold department uses personal gages in some aspects of the rebuilding process. While I was auditing, I was told that they used their own gages for inspection. I know this is a nonconformance. When I talked to the supervisor, he stated it was for inspection, but the final inspection was determined by master calibrated gages. I'm confused.
Don't be too hasty to pull the trigger! Make sure the gun is completely out of the holster or you may end up shooting yourself in the foot or some other, more sensitive part of the body.
Based on long years of experience, I can tell you are merely being victimized by "sloppy use of the English language" compounded by a natuaral reluctance to ask sufficient questions to clarify an ambiguity.
First possibility:
When many organizations use the term "inspect" they often mean a "reference check" with non-calibrated devices. They feel confident in doing this because (as your source said) "final inspection was determined by master calibrated gages." This flies in the face of "in-process inspection" but is not necessarily a non-conformance. Further, when you say "some aspects" you are also being ambiguous - exactly WHAT aspects? How crucial were those aspects to the finished product and its critical characteristics? If a worker used a warped wooden yard stick to determine whether he was dealing with one foot or two foot long bars (plus or minus 2 inches) for sorting purposes, how calibrated does the yardstick have to be? Especially if the bars were subsequently going to be sawn to 8 inches or 16 inches, plus or minus 1/4 inch, to be measured with a calibrated, two-foot vernier caliper with a discrimination of 1/1000 of an inch.
Consider a "reference check"
Second possibility:
Personal gages may be included in the certification and calibration system of the organization. I have seen this in several suppliers. The organization keeps the records by employee name and instrument type and has a regular schedule for checking to make sure the gages remain calibrated or are "retired from service." The instruments may not be individually labelled as calibrated, but they are identified accurately in the calibration records and are not subject to "mixing" with non-calibrated gages since they are kept segregated by each individual.
(My great uncle willed my brother his chest of machinist's tools that he used in a torpedo plant in World War II - all his company "certs" were in a drawer of this beautiful oak tool chest.)
Maybe you can go back and look at the situation with a less prejudicial eye.
SPECIAL NOTE:
If there are critical characteristics being measured
(with a "reference" gage) which might result in nonconformance at the final inspection, then this is "an opportunity for improvement" not a non-conformance.
