Producing to Inactive ASTM and IEC Standards

[cjenks]

Hello Quality people!

I'm conducting an audit and learned that the company I'm investigating isn't producing to the most recent ASTM standard or IEC standard for the product they manufacture. The latest revision of each standard was released almost four years ago so they have had plenty of time to get switched over. My question is - is it required that you produce to the most up-to-date standards or is it just in your best interest? I understand in the ISO world you'd want to be producing to the latest and greatest but I also know that in the Aerospace standard requirements, it's pretty mandated by the customer that the swap be made upon the expiration of the current certification.

Thanks a bunch!

 

[Mike S.]

It depends. What does the contract language say? I worked with an aerospace prime that prohibited us from producing to newer revisions of certain standards - we had to stick to a certain revision, even if superceded.

 

[cjenks]

It depends. What does the contract language say? I worked with an aerospace prime that prohibited us from producing to newer revisions of certain standards - we had to stick to a certain revision, even if superceded.

Ahh good thought but the contracts aren't holding them up here.

 

[Mike S.]

Then what does the standard itself say? Sometimes they specify their policy on revision adoption.

The question is valid -- is it required that you produce to the most up-to-date standards. The company should be able to answer.

As an auditor, if you can't find a shall they violate, there is no NC.

 

[Jim Wynne]

Is this a case of just not having the current standards, or one where the requirements of the current standards are not being upheld?

Ahh good thought but the contracts aren't holding them up here.

What does this mean?

 

[outdoorsNW]

In some cases "no changes allowed" is interpreted to include no using a newer version of standards. In other cases use of the latest version is expected. It depends on how the requirements are written. However often the documentation is not clear on this point because no one thought about it when writing the documentation.

Ask the supplier why. If they point to a no changes clause, is their interpretation reasonable? If they can't point to a no changes clause somewhere that plausibly requires them to keep using an older version, then they are probably not paying attention, cheap, etc.

 

[cjenks]

Thank you all for the input. The product they manufacture is not compliant to the current standard so this ended up coming down to a matter of what my company was willing to accept. I ended up reading both revisions of the standard and aside from formatting, they're exactly the same. So at this point, I don't think there is actually an issue right? They showed me a test report to the old revision of the standard saying everything was qualified two years ago and since nothing technical changed in the standard, we should just be able to say we are inspecting/testing to the new standard, correct? Or do we have to requalify the material again because of the new revision?

 

[Jim Wynne]

Thank you all for the input. The product they manufacture is not compliant to the current standard so this ended up coming down to a matter of what my company was willing to accept.

Is the standard called out on the drawing(s)? If so, does it specify that the latest revision must be used? Sometimes benighted designers will call out a revision level, which technically means that nothing other than the specified version must be used, regardless of how many times the standard has been updated.

 

[Mike S.]

You say "The product they manufacture is not compliant to the current standard".

But if the standard didn't change except for the formatting, or something else unrelated to how the product was built, it would seem to be fully compliant, except one could argue that the paperwork may need to be updated to reflect compliance to the latest revision.

 

[cjenks]

You say "The product they manufacture is not compliant to the current standard".

But if the standard didn't change except for the formatting, or something else unrelated to how the product was built, it would seem to be fully compliant, except one could argue that the paperwork may need to be updated to reflect compliance to the latest revision.

I finally got my hands on a copy of the old spec and was able to read them both and see that it was just formatting changes so yes, they are compliant and I'm thinking it is a paperwork issue alone.