SCAR (Supplier Corrective Action Request) Timeliness & Issuance

[sapheri]

I have a procedure that dictates that in order for SQE to issue a SCAR to supplier the manufacturing team at my plant must prove that manufacturing process internally didn't damage the part and that the inherit design of part did not cause the nonconformance with the part.

From here once this has been proven SQE issues a SCAR and works with the supplier to determine how the NC occurred. Is this appropriate to ask for this initial/internal analysis prior to issuing a SCAR?

Problems have arose in the past were SQE opened SCARs with suppliers for every issue with a part that was supplied which resulted in increased time to close records and sometimes false accusations against suppliers.

In context I work in Medical Devices at ISO13485:2003 Certified Facility.

 

[Golfman25]

re: SCAR (Supplier Corrective Action Request) Timeliness & Issuance

As a supplier I love that approach. The scar is one of the most over used things out there. When everything requires a scar it becomes a paperwork nightmare and is generally ineffective.

 

[Big Jim]

Sadly we live in a world where the tendency is to try to lay the blame as quickly as possible with just summary information. I fear that we may never really get past that.

One of the most frustrating things for a supplier is to have something rejected only to eventually learn that the person that rejected it didn't know how to measure it.

 

[Marc]

Sadly we live in a world where the tendency is to try to lay the blame as quickly as possible with just summary information. I fear that we may never really get past that...

It's an old problem and will never completely go away.

<snip> ...sometimes false accusations against suppliers. <snip>

This has been a problem for who knows how many years. I remember back in the early 1990's when I worked with a supplier who was issued several by a customer. I was brought in to work with their team investigating the problem and we eventually proved that the "defect" wasn't - The customer's employees were damaging the parts occasionally by not following their own work instruction for installing the part into an assembly.

Another fun instance was one where a request for corrective action was issued for color shade on a vinyl product in the mid 1990's. Cadillac (Hamtramck) issued it to a supplier which hired me to help (I think this was about 1995). They didn't have a Macbeth light booth... I remember catching the GM shuttle in Dayton, OH and when I got to Hamtramck luckily it was sunny out. They showed me how strange it was that when they changed position of parts (airbag covers) on an inspection rack the colors would "...mysteriously change a little bit...". Went out into the sunlight and showed them the airbags were, in sunlight, all the same color. They didn't buy a Macbeth light booth, but they stopped complaining about minor color "variations".

 

[LUV-d-4UM]

I have a procedure that dictates that in order for SQE to issue a SCAR to supplier the manufacturing team at my plant must prove that manufacturing process internally didn't damage the part and that the inherit design of part did not cause the nonconformance with the part.

From here once this has been proven SQE issues a SCAR and works with the supplier to determine how the NC occurred. Is this appropriate to ask for this initial/internal analysis prior to issuing a SCAR?

Problems have arose in the past were SQE opened SCARs with suppliers for every issue with a part that was supplied which resulted in increased time to close records and sometimes false accusations against suppliers.

In context I work in Medical Devices at ISO13485:2003 Certified Facility.

You are absolutely correct! You can only issue a SCAR if you have identified what exactly the problem is in your internal team, and are able to contain it. You have to walk the process back.