posted 22 February 2000 01:34 AM               

From: ISO Standards Discussion [email protected]
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 14:52:50 -0600
Subject: Re: Q: Prev. Maint. Vendors & Delivery Vehicles /Perdue/Kozenko

From: [email protected]

<< 1) Do you include maintenance vendors (parts vendors, and service
<< vendors) on the Approved Vendors List?

Simple axiom: "Who reviewed it? Who approved it? Where's it recorded?"

If vendors of any sort must meet minimum criteria of acceptability to get a purchase order from your firm (and 4.6 says they should), then someone "reviewed it" within the role, responsibility and authority of their position. Someone else "approved it" regarding use of that vendor based on the acceptability review, and if it's an auditable QMS then there's a record of both actions, in addition to that vendor's name on the Approved Vendor's List. (Most firms I know use the term "Preferred Vendors" to describe the ones they use, and "Approved Vendors" for the ones who initially passed the acceptability review but subsequently screwed up performance... this avoids lawsuits that a label like "Skumbag Vendors" would cause, if it were ever to leak out. (I personally love this approach because it's so frustrating to lawyers )

On the other hand, if your firm believes it can pick business cards off bulletin boards or use the telephone book to select vendors (say, for office cleaning services), then the lesson will be learned when the cleaning lady doesn't know the boss left early on an emergency and she throws away everything on his desk. Yes it was a clean desk, dusted and all. Did it affect quality? (I'd cancel a lunch date with that boss the next day, wouldn't you?)

<< 2) Does Preventive Maintenance (4.9) include product delivery
<< vehicles?

If product delivery vehicles break down and no one will ever complain or switch to another firm, then I don't see why... If the firm can't buy pencils next year because no one changed the oil on the delivery vehicles and they all "fried" within the same week, tapping the firm's letter of credit to the max... then yes, you have an indirect quality problem here.

Sometimes it's really difficult to know where to "draw the line in the sand" between things that should, and should not, be in the Quality System. A competent Registrar's Auditor should get an acceptable answer to this question, regardless of who is asked: "How does the firm's quality policy affect your job and what you do?" So that puts EVERYONE in the quality system, no?

On the other hand, I had a major engineering firm with hundreds of $$$ millions in government contracts tell me that accounting wasn't in the Quality System... The largest number of customer complaints (documented by research done by this firm ten years earlier and consistent with updated surveys) showed billing errors caused by time sheet mistakes were the chief mode of client dissatisfaction. There were already procedures in place for filling out timesheets, and newly developed templates for checking them. In spite of improvements made, the number one cause of customer complaint remained the same. But I was wrong for suggesting it ought to be a part of the QMS.

Pride goeth before the fall?

posted 29 February 2000 08:31 PM               

quote:

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Does QS9000 apply to non-automotive activities of a company?

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quote:

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Does QS9000 assess the whole-of-business affairs of a company?

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