I think in-process inspection should be done by the operator and if they find something during in-process they should call the Team Lead/QA Auditor to resolve it.
A part of a QA Auditors job currently is to verify the set-up for the process and do the final audit once the lot is completed.
That is fine. What inpsection has the prodcution people determined for the process.
We had an issue regarding QA not doing the in-process inspection and that being the reason for producing bad parts.
Why should there be an issue? Wasn't Production aware of the existing system where QA verifies the output at the beginning and end of the run? Could they not deduce from that that it is their responsibility to assure the process remains good?
I think the operator should inform Team Lead/QA if the process is not running well. I don't think QA should be blamed for something like this.
I don't think QA should start doing in-process for each and every process. That is not possible.
QA should do whatever Job
that it is provided the resourses and authority to do. However, in my experience companies are reluctant to provide these things. In the first place, they don't wan to hire enough inspectors (not value added) to sufficiently cover a given area and/or they don't want to give the authority to inspectors to stop the process, especially for what might be a marginal issue.
The underlying facts are these. Production has people, already hired and trained, who (I presume) are fully capable of measuring the critical characteristics of the output of a process. These people will generally have the time to make the checks as well. In addition such checks can be made more often and thus the process more closely monitored than QA could do it.
If the company wishes to insist that QA do the work, simply tell them to transfer all of the machine operators from production to QA. That way every machine will be run by an inspector and the Quality Manager will see that the machines only run when they are producing good parts.

Prodcution can supply some set-up people to get the machines ready and tooling people to assure that the proper tooling is available.

You can guess what their response would be to that.:mg:
Do you agree?
I appreciate if I can get any answers.
All kidding aside, Your situation is not uncommon and points to a system that is somewhat disfunctional. Your system is suffering from the, "It's not my Job" syndrome. I've been there. It's tough to change, especially if management has bought into it.
Those in production should have more pride in their work. They should be more than willing to check the parts to make sure that nothing they make ever gets rejected. No operator, no setp-up person, no supervisor should want anything they run to be bad.
Just my 2c
Peace
James