TS16949 Audit Finding to 7.5.2 - Required Signatures

[AndyN]

Good points, 'Devils Advocate'..........

There's an issue which still needs to be addressed! Is the audit finding a situation of ineffectiveness? Was there a risk of non-conforming product leaving the company? Was there evidence of the company not consistently delivering to the customers needs? Or a process/product performance issue which could have escaped without the required 'signature'?

Sure the procedure says this is required. Sure, there was one in 15 (really?) but without the other questions being asked does it really matter?

My take is the auditor was feeling the pressure of the witness audit and 'had to write it up'.............If there's no evidence of the above issues, then I'd still appeal it!

Maybe the CB auditor was still 'written up' by the witness auditor, because they didn't evaluate those points and only reported a simple symptom!

 

[dbzman]

Was there a risk of non-conforming product leaving the company?

No

Was there evidence of the company not consistently delivering to the customers needs?

No

Or a process/product performance issue which could have escaped without the required 'signature'

No

Sure the procedure says this is required. Sure, there was one in 15 (really?) but without the other questions being asked does it really matter?

Yes - see other answers

My take is the auditor was feeling the pressure of the witness audit and 'had to write it up'.............If there's no evidence of the above issues, then I'd still appeal it!

I agree...

Maybe the CB auditor was still 'written up' by the witness auditor, because they didn't evaluate those points and only reported a simple symptom

I would have liked to be a "fly on the wall" during their final meeting!

I know that I might be making a mountain out of a mole hill but our Quality Manager is a busy person and does not need added activities that do not add value to the system. The auditor was very complimentary of our system since we have very few customer complaints and very little rework (many months our rework was zero). The time it takes to process a findings can be lengthy.
I really appreciate everyone's input! Maybe I should list all of the findings just to let everyone see them.

Thanks!

 

[D.Scott]

James, Please remember I am not saying it is so but simply offering the other side.

You answered "No" to each of your questions. Having a procedure in place that requires seperate and distinct signatures of specific individuals says just the opposite. If there were no risk, why is the procedure so restrictive? It is the assumption of the auditor that if your company sees a need to define the shipping/inspection requirements in such a specific manner, they must have the opinion that the posibility of a "Yes" answer must exist.

Another thing to consider is that the auditor was auditing the shipping/inspection/approval process of your TS16949 QMS. This process presumably is used for all products. The auditor was sampling the process, not the product. The process does not distinguish between automotive and non automotive. The process itself is what was judged to have failed.

By your own admission, your process doesn't need all the signatures. You may have areas in the process that should be revised to accomodate non automotive product. Whatever the final analysis, you will need to address those issues. Why not just fix it? I would include in my corrective action a plan to review other processes and procedures for suitability and effectiveness.

Whatever the final result, good luck. Thanks for bringing this up. You would be surprised how often similar scenarios come up in an audit.

Dave

 

[vanputten]

Why does it matter if the customer of the shipment is or is not an automotive customer? What matters is the scope of applicaiton of the process.

My organization's customer base is 10% automotive. Because it was impossible to determine which product will go to which customer, until an order is received, we decided to apply the requirments of TS to all processes.

It is my organiztion's decision to apply the requirements to all of the processes.

So on the flip side, if an auditor finds problems, and the product involved is not inteneded for an automotive customer, then what was found really isn't a problem?

Thank you, Dirk

 

[dbzman]

James, Please remember I am not saying it is so but simply offering the other side.

You answered "No" to each of your questions. Having a procedure in place that requires seperate and distinct signatures of specific individuals says just the opposite.

Not necessarily, there are many instances where safeguards are put in place so that (in an instance such as this one) another activity would ensure conformance. The manager that put this procedure in place may have wanted three signatures to ensure that there were adequate safeguards (reviews) in place.

If there were no risk, why is the procedure so restrictive? It is the assumption of the auditor that if your company sees a need to define the shipping/inspection requirements in such a specific manner, they must have the opinion that the posibility of a "Yes" answer must exist.

Again, the person who wrote the procedure may have wanted safeguards in place to ensure the requirements were met. It is the auditors duty to determine this during the audit and not to just write a finding because he found one signature missing.

Another thing to consider is that the auditor was auditing the shipping/inspection/approval process of your TS16949 QMS. This process presumably is used for all products. The auditor was sampling the process, not the product. The process does not distinguish between automotive and non automotive. The process itself is what was judged to have failed.

The auditor himself said that he could no look at non-automotive orders. It made his job harder but that was how he determined his audit scope.

By your own admission, your process doesn't need all the signatures. You may have areas in the process that should be revised to accomodate non automotive product. Whatever the final analysis, you will need to address those issues. Why not just fix it? I would include in my corrective action a plan to review other processes and procedures for suitability and effectiveness.

Fixing this will depend on if there is a systemic problem to fix. Anything can fail at least once in a while. There will always be something that will not work every time. This may be why the person who wrote the procedure wanted the 3 signatures to ensure that the system works all of the time and that there were backup signitures to ensure complaince.

Whatever the final result, good luck. Thanks for bringing this up. You would be surprised how often similar scenarios come up in an audit.

Thanks Dave!

I really appreciate the opportunity to discuss this issue on the forum. The feedback that I get here is great.

 

[dbzman]

Why does it matter if the customer of the shipment is or is not an automotive customer? What matters is the scope of applicaiton of the process.

My organization's customer base is 10% automotive. Because it was impossible to determine which product will go to which customer, until an order is received, we decided to apply the requirments of TS to all processes.

It is my organiztion's decision to apply the requirements to all of the processes.

So on the flip side, if an auditor finds problems, and the product involved is not inteneded for an automotive customer, then what was found really isn't a problem?

Thank you, Dirk

Our orders are not for products but for Heat Treat work. Since our customers send us work to be heat treated we know if it is automotive work or not.
The auditor knew this so he chose to limit his audit to automotive work only.