| Mr. A: |
Recently I went to the
small company (Company S) with about twenty people working and
encountered the scene where an urgent order came from the purchasing
department of its customer in the morning to deliver the order
quantity in the evening on the same day.
|
| Mr. B: |
It is often the case with a parts
supplier.
|
| Mr. A: |
The company made to the order in
a hurry to respond to the urgent order. When it was waiting for
delivery, a phone call came from the quality assurance (QA) department
of the customer requesting not to deliver the product and reject
the order to the purchasing department.
|
| Mr. B: |
What? Was it contradicting each other
within the customer’s organization? Why did the QA department
such request?
|
| Mr. A: |
Generally it is necessary to attach
products to be delivered with formal customer-supplied documents
which are supplied with an order. In the case there were no such
documents due to the urgent order. QA department could not accept
works without the supplied-documents.
|
| Mr. B: |
I think the system is troublesome.
Why does QA department send the documents in advance of order
issues? And I think as there will be no frequent revision, document
replacement system with revision is a better alternative.
|
| Mr. A: |
But by your alternative the problem
is you have to make a ledger to record right document distribution.
The way the customer does is unnecessary to have such a ledger
for document control and the supplied documents finally returned
to the customer with product delivery resulting in no chance of
existence of obsolete documents in Company S. It was called “U-turn”
way by the QA people.
|
| Mr. B: |
Then why could Company S make products
to the urgent order without QA supplied-document?
|
| Mr. A: |
There have been customer-supplied
drawings which are under the customer’s replacement document control
as you suggest. The documents which QA department supplies with
each order are about how to make, but you may easily understand
manufacturing processes if you see drawings.
Moreover QA supplied documents are too detail for a worker to
use and many parts are so unnecessary that workers do not read
them.
To get rid of the status the company has made concise documents
in its own way. So there has been the efficient system for quality
assurance already.
|
| Mr. B: |
Then the company’s document system
is more flexible than the customer’s, even to an urgent order.
|
| Mr. A: |
That’s right. Now the company challenges
to get ISO9001:2000 with its own document system.
|
| Mr. B: |
Even so, the problem showed the customer,
big company, has contradictory system between QA department and
the purchasing department.
ISO9001:2000 recommends the adoption of a process approach. And
also in eight quality management principles, system approach to
management is included.
The customer’s system is a product by neglecting the approach.
|
| Mr. A: |
In past days, when a supplier got
ISO9001:2000 certification, delays of delivery had increased.
The reason was that the person authorizing release of product
was assigned to the quality manager when installing its ISO9001:2000
system. So far the persons authorizing release of product had
been inspectors and no problem.
The bureaucratic ISO9001:2000 system neglecting customers’ satisfaction
has increased delays of delivery.
|
| Mr. B: |
As you always said, in order to design
an effective ISO9001:2000 system, standing at overall view points
based on production management systems is essential. Unfortunately
there are a few quality people who are acquainted with production
management systems.
|
| Mr. A: |
Once I tried to design ISO9001:2000
management system for one of my client, big company. At that time
I found who was most acquainted with the total management system
of the company was the manager of IT department, not QA department.
So I mainly did my consulting works with the manager of IT department
to successful results.
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