Shelf Life
I've always looked at shelf life issues in any implementation. Typically with a FIFO system it's not an issue, but each facility is different.
Take for example paint - in a QS audit back in 1995 the auditor was raising caine because of no 'shelf life' documentation that addressed the paint issue. The problem went away when we showed the system is FIFO and that there was no paint that wasn't used wthin 2 weeks of receipt - they ran pretty lean. Since the shelf life for the paint was a year or more it becaume a non-issue.
Ever since, even in ISO, I look at that possible issue to ensure it's addressed or not applicable. I have had clients which - when we looked - did in fact have a lot of 'chemicals' which were well past their stated shelf life. In one case - since the stuff was expensive and rarely used, we contacted the manufacturer and ended up with a letter that said the shelf life was stated only because it found many companies did not properly store the stuff - they'd put it in outside storage areas or in areas where the daily sun hit it, stuff like that. It said something along the lines of if properly stored, it's actual shelf life was at least triple what was stated on the container if not longer. The client stored the stuff in a climate controlled store room. We altered a procedure with a sentence - that employees were required to know (open eyes and look at label) whether or not what they were using was a 'shelf life' item and if it was 'out of date' that the supervisor would have to be contacted to determine whether it was a real issue or not.
Just to remind, there is also the internal issue. I had a client whose product can not be shipped if it's less than 45 degrees outside. They had always known this - and in fact prior to shipping they even checked the weather forcast prior to scheduling shipment. But nothing was documented - so we made up a poster for the shipping dock and 'trained' (although everyone already knew) to keep the ISO auditor happy.
Deal with shelf life as is appropriate for your specific business and processes / products. Typically this should be a Materials Management issue IMHO.
I've always looked at shelf life issues in any implementation. Typically with a FIFO system it's not an issue, but each facility is different.
Take for example paint - in a QS audit back in 1995 the auditor was raising caine because of no 'shelf life' documentation that addressed the paint issue. The problem went away when we showed the system is FIFO and that there was no paint that wasn't used wthin 2 weeks of receipt - they ran pretty lean. Since the shelf life for the paint was a year or more it becaume a non-issue.
Ever since, even in ISO, I look at that possible issue to ensure it's addressed or not applicable. I have had clients which - when we looked - did in fact have a lot of 'chemicals' which were well past their stated shelf life. In one case - since the stuff was expensive and rarely used, we contacted the manufacturer and ended up with a letter that said the shelf life was stated only because it found many companies did not properly store the stuff - they'd put it in outside storage areas or in areas where the daily sun hit it, stuff like that. It said something along the lines of if properly stored, it's actual shelf life was at least triple what was stated on the container if not longer. The client stored the stuff in a climate controlled store room. We altered a procedure with a sentence - that employees were required to know (open eyes and look at label) whether or not what they were using was a 'shelf life' item and if it was 'out of date' that the supervisor would have to be contacted to determine whether it was a real issue or not.
Just to remind, there is also the internal issue. I had a client whose product can not be shipped if it's less than 45 degrees outside. They had always known this - and in fact prior to shipping they even checked the weather forcast prior to scheduling shipment. But nothing was documented - so we made up a poster for the shipping dock and 'trained' (although everyone already knew) to keep the ISO auditor happy.
Deal with shelf life as is appropriate for your specific business and processes / products. Typically this should be a Materials Management issue IMHO.