Quality System vs. Process vs. Product Audit - TS16949

[Helmut Jilling]

Re: How to eliminate incoming inspection

I have a question about how to eliminate the incoming inspection if we are a manufacturing company that deals with different size suppliers?
Thank you in advance

One place to begin would be to evaluate which suppliers are consistently shipping excellent product. If you are confident they will continue to ship excellent quality, and if any defect would be discovered later within your system, those might be candidates for eliminating or reducing receiving inspection. However, if a select supplier begins to ship defects, then for a time it would be approrpiate to resume receiving inspection.

 

[Keith Childers]

Re: How to eliminate incoming inspection

One place to begin would be to evaluate which suppliers are consistently shipping excellent product. If you are confident they will continue to ship excellent quality, and if any defect would be discovered later within your system, those might be candidates for eliminating or reducing receiving inspection. However, if a select supplier begins to ship defects, then for a time it would be approrpiate to resume receiving inspection.

I have worked for a company in the past who ranked their suppliers with a Red, Yellow or Green rating system.
Green suppliers were ones who had never had a quality defect that affected us, or our customer. The majority of these suppliers were screws, bolts, adhesives etc. These suppliers required no incoming inspection beyond the receiving department confirming part number and quantity.
Yellow suppliers were suppliers who maybe had minor problems in the past, but their problems were caught by our assembly process and had no possibility of being passed to our customer. These parts required a minimum level of inspection, usually < 1% per each supplier lot date.
Then you had the Red suppliers. They were classified as Red because they either had frequent minor issues, or any major issues. A supplier could also be classified as Red if their defects could make it out of our plant and detected by the customer. Red suppliers were given higher inspection rates based on the severity of their problems. Some were 20% all the way up to 100% receiving inspection.
Suppliers were audited anually and it was determined whether thier performance over the previous year would keep their ranking at the same level, moved up or moved down.

 

[Helmut Jilling]

Re: How to eliminate incoming inspection

I have worked for a company in the past who ranked their suppliers with a Red, Yellow or Green rating system.
Green suppliers were ones who had never had a quality defect that affected us, or our customer. The majority of these suppliers were screws, bolts, adhesives etc. These suppliers required no incoming inspection beyond the receiving department confirming part number and quantity.
Yellow suppliers were suppliers who maybe had minor problems in the past, but their problems were caught by our assembly process and had no possibility of being passed to our customer. These parts required a minimum level of inspection, usually < 1% per each supplier lot date.
Then you had the Red suppliers. They were classified as Red because they either had frequent minor issues, or any major issues. A supplier could also be classified as Red if their defects could make it out of our plant and detected by the customer. Red suppliers were given higher inspection rates based on the severity of their problems. Some were 20% all the way up to 100% receiving inspection.
Suppliers were audited anually and it was determined whether thier performance over the previous year would keep their ranking at the same level, moved up or moved down.

That sounds like a very good approach. I like it, though I would recommend one important change. The annual review is appropriate, but I think a green or yellow supplier should immedately lose their favored status (temporarily) when you experience quality issues. To keep with the intent of the standard, favored status should only be maintained when their current performance justifies it.

 

[sora142]

thanks a lot for your answer

 

[sora142]

Re: how to eliminate the incoming inspection

thank you so much all

 

[Keith Childers]

Re: How to eliminate incoming inspection

That sounds like a very good approach. I like it, though I would recommend one important change. The annual review is appropriate, but I think a green or yellow supplier should immedately lose their favored status (temporarily) when you experience quality issues. To keep with the intent of the standard, favored status should only be maintained when their current performance justifies it.

Point well taken.
I think we kind of informally did that, but it would be a good idea to make it a part of the documented procedure.

 

[jmurph01]

I want to note that our 3rd party auditor stated that daily dock audits and quality checks called out on control plan do not suffice for product audits.

Last year we performed product audits on each of our finished products once every 2 months. Due to the good results last year, we have changed it to every 4 months.

We have had the same finding. If it is a regular check called out on the control plan it is not a product audit. We had included our daily shiftly quality audits and annual layouts as part of product audits. It was fine for 3 years but then our new auditor didn't buy it.

Originally Posted by sora142

I have a question about how to eliminate the incoming inspection if we are a manufacturing company that deals with different size suppliers?
Thank you in advance

we rate our suppliers quarterly with an A,B,C,D rating. If the supplier is D for one quarter or C for the entire year, they must implement containment actions and certify all stock coming to our facility. We implement receiving inspection, but only to check that the incoming parts are certified and perhaps a spot check of some parts if necessary. Otherwise for A and B suppliers we do not do any receiving inspection unless they have a quality issue with a part.

 

[Athies]

We too perform product audits on our products as per the ISO/TS requirement ie packaging, labelling, dimension functionality...
We sample products at particular points along the process flow and yearly our Internal Auditors perform an audit to ensure the product audit is performed per the respective process procedures.
Then here comes a customer ( Not an automotive customer) and their intrpretation is that if a company is certified ISO/TS, then product audit SHALL be performed for all products irrespective whether the product is automotive or not.
Another intrepretation of the Product Audit, especially for semiconductor suppliers is that even the wire size, die dimension, leadframe dimension is required to be audited, when the ISO/TS is very clear on packaging, labelling, dimension and functionality.

 

[ranvir.jaryal]

Athies,

What i can understand from your statement is that , if we audit product at all production stages (including FG shipping etc) (Here by QC) and during internal quality audit we check whether we are following the checkpoints at each stage is good enough to qualify for compliance with TS requirement.



Rocky

 

[pondo]

Athies,

What i can understand from your statement is that , if we audit product at all production stages (including FG shipping etc) (Here by QC) and during internal quality audit we check whether we are following the checkpoints at each stage is good enough to qualify for compliance with TS requirement.



Rocky

No. Not the requirement for TS. Product audit is of the finished product...above and beyond all other conformance checks called out in your process documentation. And not a dock audit either. And not annual layout either. The frequency can be very low if you can provide evidence to support it.