Quality Assurance of Off-The-Shelf Products - 7.4.3.1 "Incoming Product Quality"

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Akira418

Hello all,

I'm working as a QA staff at Electric Component Company in Japan. This is my first time to post a thread...so please be patient.

About ISO/TS clause 7.4.3.1 "Incoming product quality", how are we supposed to assure the quality of off-the-shelf products? Like something we order from a catalog? (e.g. chip condencers) Most of those suppliers don't submit Inspection Data. And if we request them to, it costs us.

Any advice please?
 
G

Gert Sorensen

Re: Quality Assurance of Off-the-shelf products

Hello all,

I'm working as a QA staff at Electric Component Company in Japan. This is my first time to post a thread...so please be patient.

About ISO/TS clause 7.4.3.1 "Incoming product quality", how are we supposed to assure the quality of off-the-shelf products? Like something we order from a catalog? (e.g. chip condencers) Most of those suppliers don't submit Inspection Data. And if we request them to, it costs us.

Any advice please?

:bigwave: Welcom to the cove!

The question you should ask is more likely to be: Will it cost us more not to be able to verify the quality of our components than it will cost us to pay for these Inspection certificates?? What is the complaint ratio? How much time is being spent on complaint handling etc. Can you somehow test the items as an incoming inspection routine?

Generally speaking, look at the costs of what you do, and compare them to the cost of doing what you would like to do. :)
 

Wes Bucey

Prophet of Profit
Re: Quality Assurance of Off-the-shelf products

One key is that the product is the same when supplied to ANY buyer. You can buy a sample to assure it meets your basic requirements. You can count on reports of others (in the USA, end users can refer to publications which report on satisfaction and repair rates of products from autos to detergents.)

When you buy components (fasteners, circuit boards, steel, etc.), you record and track your own experience with a product (incoming inspection by customer or independent lab paid by customer), you rely on supplier guarantees and warrantees, you check with others through references supplied by the seller, trade associations, rumor, and other word of mouth.

It is a truism that
"Fool me once, shame on you [supplier]; fool me twice, shame on me [customer.]" Companies which consistently supply shoddy products or services soon become known to the entire marketplace.

Good suppliers are eager to demonstrate their worth to the marketplace and will readily disclose all but "trade secrets" to do so. Beware the supplier who won't talk about his quality methods and techniques.

If using the above methods doesn't work, you may have to consider the value added for paying either an extra fee for inspection records or buying from a supplier who will supply them, but may charge more base price for the product.

The bottom line is we consider the net "cost in place" of a good, workable product, NOT the initial unit price BEFORE all our soft costs of inspection and sorting. Most especially, we consider the cost of repeated calls and returns of unsatisfactory product and the resultant disruption to our own production processes.
 
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Gert Sorensen

Re: Quality Assurance of Off-the-shelf products

Very nicely put, Wes :cool:
 
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potdar

Re: Quality Assurance of Off-the-shelf products

Just like you, this is also my first entry at the cove. Nice to meet you.

I would firstly look at the supplier selection in this case. Is the supplier (the manufacturer. not the trader) certified to ISO / TS or at least approved by the customer? Even then the responsibility of supplying acceptable product quality remains with you.

That leads to the second part. How critical is this part to the functioning of your product? Or are they "pass through" components that dont get processed / checked / tested by you?

The option open with you is incoming part inspection / testing. A suitable sampling plan can be chosen depending on the criticality as above, established reliability of the supplier (in market / historical supplies). Just optimise the overall cost of quality.

If the customer agrees to any other method, so be it - so long as it suits your concerns!
 
A

Akira418

Thank you all! Your advices are very helpful.

Thinking over the suggestions, another quesiton popped into my head.
"a process to assure the quality of purchased product" of the 7.4.3.1 requirement...should this process be on-going basis (like Incoming Inspection), or part approval at the first delivery could be enough?

When the part doesn't have much variation and/or the variation doesn't have much effect to the product, it seems pointless to perform Incoming Inspection everytime. However I'm afraid TS auditor might take it as non-conformance to the requirement, if the "process" is not continuous.
 
A

Akira418

Re: Quality Assurance of Off-the-shelf products

One key is that the product is the same when supplied to ANY buyer. You can buy a sample to assure it meets your basic requirements. You can count on reports of others (in the USA, end users can refer to publications which report on satisfaction and repair rates of products from autos to detergents.)

When you buy components (fasteners, circuit boards, steel, etc.), you record and track your own experience with a product (incoming inspection by customer or independent lab paid by customer), you rely on supplier guarantees and warrantees, you check with others through references supplied by the seller, trade associations, rumor, and other word of mouth.

It is a truism that
"Fool me once, shame on you [supplier]; fool me twice, shame on me [customer.]" Companies which consistently supply shoddy products or services soon become known to the entire marketplace.

Good suppliers are eager to demonstrate their worth to the marketplace and will readily disclose all but "trade secrets" to do so. Beware the supplier who won't talk about his quality methods and techniques.

If using the above methods doesn't work, you may have to consider the value added for paying either an extra fee for inspection records or buying from a supplier who will supply them, but may charge more base price for the product.

The bottom line is we consider the net "cost in place" of a good, workable product, NOT the initial unit price BEFORE all our soft costs of inspection and sorting. Most especially, we consider the cost of repeated calls and returns of unsatisfactory product and the resultant disruption to our own production processes.

Thank you for showing me the way of Quality-Thinking! Could you tell me where I can find the example of "publications"? I wonder if we have similar things in Japan or it's US thing.
 
P

potdar

Thinking over the suggestions, another quesiton popped into my head.
"a process to assure the quality of purchased product" of the 7.4.3.1 requirement...should this process be on-going basis (like Incoming Inspection), or part approval at the first delivery could be enough?

When the part doesn't have much variation and/or the variation doesn't have much effect to the product, it seems pointless to perform Incoming Inspection everytime. However I'm afraid TS auditor might take it as non-conformance to the requirement, if the "process" is not continuous.

Akira,

Do not bother too much about the auditor. You set your own processes and ensure that they conform to the standard. So long as you follow these, the auditor has nothing to say.

First batch inspection and approval of the products would constitute a part of your supplier approval process. For incoming inspection you are free even to choose an audit inspection. Your frequency of inspection could be once in 10 lots or even once in three months. Define what suits you best. follow it. and forget the auditor.

But yes, don't forget the customer while making things easier for yourself.
 
A

Akira418

Akira,

First batch inspection and approval of the products would constitute a part of your supplier approval process. For incoming inspection you are free even to choose an audit inspection. Your frequency of inspection could be once in 10 lots or even once in three months. Define what suits you best. follow it. and forget the auditor.

But yes, don't forget the customer while making things easier for yourself.

Thank you for the specific and helpful advice! I'll discuss the possibility with my boss. :)
 
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