Supplier refusing to do full CA - claims they don't need to since they're ISO 9001

[Ed Panek]

What is in your SQA with them?

 

[RoxaneB]

Several solutions and follow-up questions have been asked. I'd recommend we hold off on this thread until the OP comes back with some clarifying information.

 

[Slickpick]

Our customer requests 8Ds for anything and everything - even if we can prove our material meets specification, we are still requested to do an 8D (customer may have equipment issues for example - they still push it back on us) ... With that being said, we don't adhere to the same philosophy when it comes to our suppliers. We only request an 8D if the issue causes excessive downtime or a pass through feature is identified as nonconforming at our customer.

This is the first formal 8D we have requested from this supplier in the last 3 years.

• This is a repeat issue (for previous occurrences we had just asked them to monitor their process)
• We asked for a formal 8D due to this being a repeat issue and a larger amount of the lot was affected which caused downtime and having to switch to another variant
• We requested this 8D three months ago and initially received pushback for even asking for one - they made it clear they did not want to perform any investigation
• We have weekly calls with this supplier and we had continuously asked for updates over the last three months- no information was given to us prior to receiving their half page write up other than ("Our team is working on the issue")
• Supplier promised us a completed 8D by the end of September, but we did not receive any information until 10/20. We were told the reason for the delay was that their team needed to validate and verify their corrective actions. When we asked for evidence of verification, they referenced their ISO 9001 certification

 

[Bev D]

<sigh>
This is not a good supplier. You weren’t being excessive in your request at all.
They are saying ‘take it or leave it’ with middle finger up
You should leave it. Based on my 40+ years experience.

 

[Golfman25]

Our customer requests 8Ds for anything and everything - even if we can prove our material meets specification, we are still requested to do an 8D (customer may have equipment issues for example - they still push it back on us) ... With that being said, we don't adhere to the same philosophy when it comes to our suppliers. We only request an 8D if the issue causes excessive downtime or a pass through feature is identified as nonconforming at our customer.

This is the first formal 8D we have requested from this supplier in the last 3 years.

• This is a repeat issue (for previous occurrences we had just asked them to monitor their process)
• We asked for a formal 8D due to this being a repeat issue and a larger amount of the lot was affected which caused downtime and having to switch to another variant
• We requested this 8D three months ago and initially received pushback for even asking for one - they made it clear they did not want to perform any investigation
• We have weekly calls with this supplier and we had continuously asked for updates over the last three months- no information was given to us prior to receiving their half page write up other than ("Our team is working on the issue")
• Supplier promised us a completed 8D by the end of September, but we did not receive any information until 10/20. We were told the reason for the delay was that their team needed to validate and verify their corrective actions. When we asked for evidence of verification, they referenced their ISO 9001 certification

Ok. That sounds reasonable -- repeat issue, so there is something systemic. I am less interested in the time as good 8D's may take a while. I more interested in their lack of attention to the matter. So, how important of a supplier are they? Are there others who can give you better service? How important of a customer are you to them? Are they local which would facilitate a quick trip to investigate/review? I think these issue need to be handled face to face rather than via email, etc. You'll need to determine what your options are -- can you "fix" these guys or find another. Good luck.

 

[Ed Panek]

As people said above, this supplier is not great. I'd be concerned about any audits you have and if this supplier is sampled. Do you face customer or regulatory audits yourself? How would you explain this confusion to a customer audit?