Part 2 - The Bad: Communicating Quality Requirements to your Suppliers

 

The Bad:

 

When quality requirements have been communicated to your supplier but an audit shows that requirements have not been met. Fortunately, the audit can act as a second chance to communicate quality requirements to your supplier. Example: Your quality requirement is SPC. An audit shows that your supplier does not perform SPC. A corrective action follows and the quality requirement is now communicated.

 

 

When the audit does not communicate requirements to your supplier. This is generally due to a lack of audit trail evidence. Example: If audit findings say only that “Maintenance is insufficient,” then quality requirements have not been communicated. The audit findings must include an audit trail – evidence of exactly what is insufficient. Was there no maintenance schedule? Was there a maintenance schedule but it was not followed? Was a machine found inoperable or dirty or contaminated? Have maintenance activities not been recorded? Etc. The supplier needs to know what quality requirement it was not meeting for quality requirements to be communicated.