J
I took over as QM a year ago in a mold shop that employs 23 toolmakers, CNC operators and machinists. When the company had a calibration finding for uncalibrated devices, the previous QM went through and slapped For Reference Only labels on every gage pin set, gage block set, angle block set and milling machine depth indicator. Coming from a TS environment, I get a real bellyache over FRO gages in the manufacturing process. After gage pins were inspected (we have hundreds of them) we knew we needed a tighter control, but, of course, I'm limited by cost. It is 2 bucks a pin to calibrate, a Z mic is out of my budget allowance and doing it on CMM just isn't cost effective. After talking with some colleagues in the biz, I decided to introduce a verification before use with a calibrated device policy for these types of gages, which, technically, is what the guys have been doing all along. Only this time, we've established criteria in their work instructions and the SOP for visual acceptance and defined actions to take for these gages that fail dimensional or visual verification. Here's my fear, the records that we decided to go with is the documentation of any failures and subsequent disposition by the QM after the piece is turned in, and, recording verification results on the Job Order Paperwork (the closest thing we have to a control plan) along with the ID of the calibrated gage used if the results of the measurement were used to dimensionally verify conformance to requirements. This is also outlined in the training document and the work instructions. My question is, is this compliant to ISO9000? I've gone through it word for word, tore apart the work instructions and SOP and couldn't find an audit trap, but I still have an uneasy feeling about going this way. Maybe it's because it's just not something I'm used to having come from a production environment where control plans ruled and EVERYTHING is documented somewhere; but I'm in a quandry. The guys here are stone solid when it comes to making sure their tools are in good shape and what they're using is measuring accurately - we've never had a defect reported due to a gage failure or measuring issue. Any thoughts?
