Silly customers - Customer On-Site Audits

[Roland Cooke]

The 20 mandays audit could have been easily avoided by tactful negotiations by the supplier.
I see a managerial failure on the part of the supplier here.Let us not find fault in the wrong place.
V.J.Brahmaiah

The 20-mandays were avoided, or at least will be. MIREGMGR's company is allowing 3 man-days only.

 

[Al Rosen]

The 20 mandays audit could have been easily avoided by tactful negotiations by the supplier.
I see a managerial failure on the part of the supplier here.Let us not find fault in the wrong place.
V.J.Brahmaiah

It was also the suppliers' fault that the customer wasn't controlling them enough.

 

[arios]

Even though the amount of bussines with your company as supplier seems low you did in my opinion an effort from your part to help your customer.

Yau may have had a different perspective regarding the benefits of the visit, and that is understandable. Still a good relationship and mutual respect encourages comunication, which is of benefit at the end.

If I remember well, the tragedy of the Challenger traced back to a single defective and inexpensive gasket. We all would had wanted this issue prevented, so don't feel the visit was waste of time, and let your customer learn from the experience and from you. It can take a while for them to learn but we all make mistakes from which we can improve.

Now, if your customer is on the medical device sector you never know if one of those visits to you or to other of his suppliers could save a life.

 

[Ajit Basrur]

This is very true - I have seen Customers visit us (previous organization) just to get a free sightseeing tour / just to visit somebody to make their overseas plans look big

 

[Sidney Vianna]

If I remember well, the tragedy of the Challenger traced back to a single defective and inexpensive gasket.

Sorry, but your recollection is faulty. There was nothing inexpensive about the gasket in the booster. It is well documented that the tragedy happened due to a political decision trumping the technical advice against the launch, due to extreme cold conditions at the launch pad.

 

[Miner]

A lesser-known contributing cause was design related. A decision was made to assemble the sections horizontally instead of vertically. The increased deformation caused by gravity in the horizontal position required increased clearances between the mating sections to ensure assembly. This in turn increased dependency on the infamous o-rings.

 

[JaneB]

Re: Silly customers

I do not see any objective evidence to prove that your customer was silly.

Really? Disagree.

This customer, according to the first post:

• Bought only $400 worth of one standard product last year
• Before that, last purchase was in 2005
• Audited them several years ago by 3 personnel (a lot of personnel)
• Current audit plan involves sending 4-person contracted audit teams .. for audits of up to five days, to
• Mostly low-expenditure, once-a-year-product-run vendors

Gosh. :mg:
It doesn't sound like what I'd call an intelligent plan. At all.

 

[JaneB]

The 20 mandays audit could have been easily avoided by tactful negotiations by the supplier.

Ahem - this looks very like an assumption to me.

 

[JaneB]

It sounds like this vendor is going out in the dark, holding up a net, and hoping a bird flies into it.

Nice analogy and well described.