Writing on Customer Engineering Drawings - Red Lining?

apestate

Quite Involved in Discussions
#11
doug, design is not in the scope of our QMS. even when somebody calls looking for 500 to 1000 widgets that will go into this and space it this far and we basically do design it, we simply send the guy the drawing and carefully explain that for two reasons the design is his responsibility. 1. ISO 9001:2000 scope excluding design, 2. Liability for any product damage or safety.

Be careful who you do this for though. Some people will never never never understand anything because they're unreasonable and dumb. Still, if you have to deal with that, you have explained that they are responsible for the design of the product and they've signed the drawing I cooked up.

WALLACE, most of our customers are very sophisticated and their drawings are CAD based and spec'd and toleranced very very well. I have been learning alot just from the designs and GD&T I see come across my desk.

Wes, I have become very interested in the following concern:

Wes Bucey said:
  • All these intermediary characteristics and the drawings which represent them are strictly in-house and often NOT shared with a customer, but retained as "trade secrets" to prevent them from falling into the hands of competitors who may take the fruit of your process design and undercut your price (customers have been known to be active agents in such piracy)
I am writing a new FMEA / Control Plan for a pair of very simple parts to involve and satisfy a CQE quality manager for a TS-16949 organization. We had product nonconformity on both parts because our quality system is not flexing its muscle yet.

What I'm doing now is flexing the muscle of the process and procedures for corrective action and preventive action all the way.

To get to the point, what this means is my FMEA is three pages long for each part. It also resulted in a tooling & machinery FMEA done on a tool. With the information contained in the FMEAs and Control Plans and Corrective Actions, someone knowledgeable could easily determine what machines and tooling we are using.

Originally I was warned by a man much wiser that if they know these things they might start trying to manage the way we work. After reading your warnings, I can see that these documents might lead to something worse.

How do I avoid shooting myself in the foot here?

Regards, Erik
 
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Cari Spears

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Staff member
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#12
Wes Bucey said:
"redlines" typically refer to changes proposed for any document, engineering drawing or text. The redlines are considered temporary until the next revision can be issued. When time is of the essence, necessary approval signatures are added to the document and the redlined document becomes the next revision officially (subject to cleanup later)
Example:

Early last year we started doing work for a major milling machine mfg. Every spindle print they send us for RFQ states "Forged 8650". When I first started looking around for 8650 forged to print, every source no quoted and offered 4150 (4150 is a typical spindle steel). I went on-line and did a little research and found out that 8650 is a blade steel or something like that - go figure.

So, our estimator contacted the buyer and asked if we could offer 4150 instead. He said yes, we submitted the quote and they ordered the parts. For close to a year now we have done this with every order from them, but we have to mark up their drawings because we would never get a revised drawing out of them, even if it is repeat orders.

So, what are ya gonna do? We "redline" the drawing and it's initialed by the authorized process engineer. There have been occasions where we got an engineer or buyer to mark up a dimension or note on a faxed portion of the print. We keep it in the job file with the PO to verify that our mark up was ok'd by the customer, but you can't always get even that from a lot of our customers.
 
B

Bill Ryan - 2007

#13
How do I avoid shooting myself in the foot here?
Quite simply - By not being as specific as you might be. Most of my entries are very generic (speed setting - set incorrectly, fixture condition - worn, offset setting - set incorrectly, etc.). Even on the Control Plan, none of my specific settings are spelled out. I merely reference setup sheets (or wherever we may document the actual settings).

Another approach might be that you have an "internal" PFMEA and Control Plan for your use and an "external" one submitted to the customer. The key to remember is they are YOUR documents. Your "man much wiser" is right on. The more you "tell" your customer the more they will try to "help" you run your business, and in fact, it doesn't matter how much you tell your customer - they have "the only way" to do it and will "share" that with you anyway. I believe it was Wes, in another thread, that mentioned the "only way I know how - therefore it has to be done that way" mentality (paraphrased - and if it wasn't Wes, I apologize).

:topic: BTW - a 3 page FMEA sounds to me as if you're only filling out a static form - not using it as a tool for improvement and process history (which is one of the true values of an FMEA - not what the automotive world has turned it into.)

Bill
 

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#14
atetsade said:
I am writing a new FMEA / Control Plan for a pair of very simple parts to involve and satisfy a CQE quality manager for a TS-16949 organization.
. . .
To get to the point, what this means is my FMEA is three pages long for each part. It also resulted in a tooling & machinery FMEA done on a tool. With the information contained in the FMEAs and Control Plans and Corrective Actions, someone knowledgeable could easily determine what machines and tooling we are using.

Originally I was warned by a man much wiser that if they know these things they might start trying to manage the way we work. After reading your warnings, I can see that these documents might lead to something worse.

How do I avoid shooting myself in the foot here?

Regards, Erik
I see 3 issues.
  1. fulfilling the letter and spirit of TS16949 vis a vis your customer
  2. protecting your organization from "micromanagement" by your customer
  3. protecting your trade secrets
Comments:
  1. Since I'm not privy to the product or the processes involved, I can't know if you are telling more than necessary in your FMEA. That's an issue you might take up with a TS16949 consultant familiar with your industry.
  2. Protecting your organization from micromanagement from a customer begins when the organization spreads its risk among several customers to avoid allowing a customer to have financial leverage to enforce micromanagement. Failing that (many companies are unable to spread the risk - essentially being captive to one or two customers), do a little research to determine if this particular customer has a history of such actions.
  3. Protecting trade secrets from being seen is almost impossible. The primary thing is to protect trade secrets from being used to your organization's detriment. Have your suits talk to the company attorneys for a notice or warning label to stick on documents declaring them "confidential and private" and other good terms the legal beagles will want. Many business attorneys and insurance companies have pamphlets and training materials about trade secrets - get them and use them! Next, create a mind set for employees to treat the knowledge contained in those documents as trade secrets. Even your attorneys will tell you the warning label is powerless to prevent a thief in corporate clothing, but it will give you a better chance to prevail in court.
I hope this helps you, Erik, as well as others who may find themselves in a similar situation.- good luck.
 
Last edited:

apestate

Quite Involved in Discussions
#15
well thank you very much, everyone

I think that about wraps up the discussion here. don't worry, you'll have many more opportunities to help me out and wise me up. some of you have learned me real good.

My problem is that there are no suits in this company. I'd be it. And we don't really retain an attorney and I really feel like getting one to understand what I want to know and wasting my time reading the result would be a waste of time and $400. The insurance agent might have something, but this is probably why I pay for the internet.

the part in question with a 3 page FMEA is a screw machine bolt with 8 features if you include the type of metal as one. Please visit this discussion in FMEA / Control Plan ! :>
 
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