QA6640 Chat Room Transcript
for February 21, 2007
Prof. Atkins 20:15:21
The chat room is closed for this evening. It will reopen next Wednesday at 7:35
pm.
Prof. Atkins 20:12:35
Stevens,
Module Assignment Two is on the internet web
site. Click on the MODULES button. Scroll down and click on Module Assignment
Two. All the Modules and the Chat Room Transcripts are on the Module Button
page.
gstevens 20:11:10
Where is module assignment 2 located?
alan dial 20:11:03
Thank you for your assistance Prof. Atkins and response to email.
Prof. Atkins 20:10:34
If there are no questions we can close the chat room for this evening.
alan dial 20:10:31
None
Prof. Atkins 20:06:27
The thirty-minutes are now up. Responses posted after this message appears will
not be evaluated for chat room participation credit.
Module Assignment Two is due on Monday, February
26.
If you have a question, you may ask it at this
time.
el hamraoui hanane 20:03:38
The one I chose to discuss is supplier recognition and the company is Lockheed
Martin that currently has over 1,600 suppliers. “Lockheed’s Martin supplier
rating is based on system is how well the supplier is performing compared with
its own abilities. Two basic parameters are used to measure the supplier’s
performance, purchase order delivery schedule and quality performance. Purchase
order deliveries are tracked and status reports are generated monthly. To
remain acceptable, the supplier must maintain a concurrence level of 96% or
higher. Quality performance is measured against percent acceptance and cost of
quality. Percent acceptance at source inspection must be 98% or higher while
Lockheed’s quality cost must be $2500 or below. Suppliers are placed on a
Deferred Status if they do not meet these criteria”
http://www.bmpcoe.org/bestpractices/internal/lmtas/lmtas_32.html
Currently out of that pool of suppliers only 178 have been selected for STAR
supplier awards. The prestigious award is made only to Lockheed Martin
suppliers who distinguish themselves by meeting some of the most stringent
performance criteria in the industry. Suppliers are can be awarded if they
achieve 100% quality and 100% delivery for all products provided to Lockheed
Martin in a short period of time. Additionally, they should meet the
established criteria for Lockheed Martin’s Supplier Performance Evaluation
metric that evaluates quality, delivery, affordability, and
management/administration.
As example of outstanding supplier, Lockheed Martin has recognized for year
2005 multiple businesses within Goodrich Corporation (NYSE: GR) for achieving
100% on-time delivery with 100% quality performance over the course of the past
year. Goodrich's de-icing, propulsion systems and hoist and winch teams have
achieved this milestone in performance and have been selected to receive
Lockheed Martin STAR Supplier awards.
Goodrich Corporation through their enterprise-wide focus on operational
excellence proving the ability to meet some of the most stringent performance
criteria in the industry. Goodrich's operational excellence efforts include the
use of Lean Product Development and Continuous Improvement tools coupled with
supply chain management/strategic sourcing efforts all focusing on customer
satisfaction and cost reduction.
http://ir.goodrich.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=60759&p=irol-newsArticle&highlight=&ID=818976
gstevens 20:02:43
Glenn Stevens
Email: anandale@comcast.net
Date: February 21, 2007
Company Selected: Federated Systems Group (FSG) is the IT arm of Federated
Department Stores. It provides IT support for the retail end of the business,
with store operations, inventory management, marketing and sales, and financial
reporting. The IT organizations are are continuously enhancing existing
applications and developing new software systems to support the above mentioned
businesses of the company. In light of the Sarbanes Oxley requirements for publicly
traded companies it is more important than ever that stringent controls are in
place to vouch for the accuracy of the financial reporting.
Appliction: Product and Process audit entails
conducting special investigations to ascertain the level of compliancy with the
standard expectation. Product auditing may entail a inspecting of random sample
of products to ascertain conformance to requirements, level of precision,
quality defects etc. Such audits are usually required when there is a
noticeable deviation or mandated by the product owners. Process auditing is
used to check for compliancy in meeting the underlying standards for the
process. These can be in the form of inspections, observations, interviews of
personnel or measurement analysis.
Example: The example being used is as a result
of the new Sarbanes Oxley requirement by the company. FSG has created
documented processes, with embedded controls in place. The processes developed
are for the development and maintenance of the software applications to support
the company’s business operations. A reference process framework provided by
Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute: Capability Maturity Model
Integration (CMMI) is used. The model allows for the creation of standard
processes based on 5 levels of maturity. The company has elected to establish
processes based on level 2 of the CMMI model. At this level the following
processes must be in place. Project Management, Configuration Management,
Change Management, Supplier Agreement, Quality Management.
Once the processes have been documented, they are piloted with small teams. At
the same time education is conducted with all the staff members on the use and
adoption of the processes. Once all the education and pilot results are
satisfactorily completed the processes are activated and mandated for use
throughout FSG.
Because of the Sarbanes Oxley requirement that
stipulates stringent control over the IT functions and systems used to produce
the financial reports and disclosures it is necessary to commit process audits.
There is a dedicated team of auditors consisting of full time employees. Once a
an application is in the process of being developed there are selected audit
points where the audit teams conduct audit checks. The audits consist of inspecting
documentation to check for compliancy to process templates, it also entails
interviewing the software development practitioners on the methods and level of
knowledge in following the processes. One of the most powerful tool used by the
audit team is the use of checklist, that serves as a guide to the effort.
Additionally sample output of reports is examined to check for reporting
accuracy. An external auditing agency also makes unannounced visits to audit
the processes as well. These external auditors also interview staff at random,
selects random samples of documents to check for process compliancy as well as
reports. In some rare cases, they will observer the software development team
at work, but this is not the norm as this tends to cause the practitioners to
change their behavior to suit the auditors. A report is prepared at the end of
the audit with scores given in the following ares: Process Compliancy
Percentage, Document Template Usage and Compliancy, Financial Reporting
Accuracy. The overall score will also list key areas for improvement. The
company will then review these and take the necessary steps to address the
areas of deficiencies.
Komic 20:02:03
Company: Snowden Pencer. The company develops, manufactures, packages and
markets surgical instruments.
Action Planning. Whenever supplier performance
is low, the customer shall do some action to improve supplier performance.
Snowden- Pencer has established requirements for
action planning when supplier do not meet on time delivery and quality
performance requirements set by Snowden Pencer.
Purchasing manager reviews all critical supplier
transaction history for delivery performance and nonconformance not less than
twice per year.
To identify incoming quality concerns, any critical supplier whose rejected
dollar vs. receipt dollar percentage is greater than 5 %, a recommendation is
made to review the Quality System of the supplier. Any critical supplier whose
on time delivery is less than 85 %, a recommendation is made to review the Quality
System of the supplier. This may include on-site review.
Supplier board reviews need for critical supplier Quality System review based
on the rejected dollar vs. receipt dollar and on time delivery matrics.
If a review is needed, an on-site audit may be considered.
If a review is not needed, the supplier board documents the decision and sends
a warning letter requesting corrective action.
If corrective action is needed, an audit report/warning letter with corrective
action is sent to vendor.
Supplier sign and return warning letter.
Supplier must respond with corrective action within 60 days of warning letter.
If corrective action is not needed, supplier board documents decision.
Natasha_Romero 20:00:10
Natasha Romero
nromero@spsu.edu
This question was difficult for me to respond to
as I do not and have not ever worked in our procurment department. So very hard
to relate to supplier ratings as I have never been involved in conducting them.
I took the perspective of the supplier for this weeks discussion.
Corrective Action Program
1. I currently work for Sandia National
Laboratory. We are a contractor to the Department of Energy and Department of
Defense. Our mission is national security. We design both embedded and
non-embedded software systems.
2. A corrective action program is used to
identify, document and plan improvements to a known defect.
3. The company that I work for is currently a supplier to the Department of Energy (DOE). Approximately once a year the DOE will send auditors to audit our program specifically. The auditors have the opportunity to audit any of the processes which are documented in our Quality Assurance Program Plan (QAPP). For example, in the QAPP we state that for each major project we will have close the project by documenting lessons learned from that project. This document will look at the over lifecycle of the project and identify problems which may have occurred throughout the project as well as new processes which were used during the project and document either the success or failure of the new process. In last years audit the auditors asked to review our Lessons Learned document for a particular project. The lessons learned had never been documented. The majority of the engineers who worked on the project had moved on to other projects and this was never performed. With every audit that is conducted a findings report is created. This report is then reviewed by our managers, quality engineers and appropriate engineers. A response or corrective action report is created in response to the findings report to document what actions will be taken to ensure that the findings are addressed. In the example of the lessons learned document which was never created the obvious corrective action was to have this document written. In the corrective action report it was documented that the report would be completed and a date of completion was also given. The Department of Energy was then notified once the action item was completed. The corrective action report was updated to reflect that the document has been completed. The DOE auditors usually review the previous years audit to ensure that all outstanding findings have been addressed. It is our responsibility as the supplier to ensure that all previous concerns have been addressed. As our customer DOE is willing to help us where appropriate to ensure that we are able to correct all findings.
Brad McGuire 19:58:46
Brad McGuire
bmcguire@spsu.edu
QA6640
1) I will be using Lockheed Martin Aeronautics
Company in Marietta, GA as my example company.
2) I will be discussing the concept of ‘Meeting with suppliers’ as it relates
to the interaction between Lockheed Martin F-22 QA and C/A Engineering and the
U.S. Air Force Aircraft Acceptance Team.
3) A specific example that is a good example of
‘Meeting with suppliers’ can be found in my organization’s monthly meetings
with our F-22 customer. These meetings are organized and presented by the F-22
aircraft acceptance team. The purpose of these meetings is to provide feedback
to us (QA & CA) regarding the month’s total defect findings (and lack
thereof). These meetings, as the book states, “create another vehicle for
dialogue to take place” in addition to the daily email reports and face-to-face
discussions in the final assembly area. These monthly sit-down meetings create
a two-way communication forum in which the Air Force team discusses: 1) each
and every defect they discovered on the aircraft, 2) when it was found and by
whom, 3) whether or not it is recurring, and 4) other miscellaneous
circumstances that may be significant. In fact, Air Force team is well aware
that these monthly reports are highly scrutinized by F-22 QA upper management
and that QA and C/A Engineering receive individual annual performance ratings
based in part on the reports. So again, as stated on page 60, “The sharing of
information will be enhanced because the supplier understands how all suppliers
are rated”. We can compare all previous months’ reports to the current month
and thereby decipher what changed in the data, good or bad (if anything). These
meetings are invaluable because of the clear line of communication that is
utilized. We, as QA and C/A, are able to take away highly pertinent information
at the end of the session and feed back the information to the QA inspectors on
the floor. By becoming more cognizant of what the Air Force acceptance team is
finding, we’re, often times, able to take it a step further and develop
long-term corrective action. The significance of these meetings should not be
underestimated. Due to the fact that our QA and CA groups have been touting a
positive trend in these Air Force reports in the last two years, we’ll not be
discontinuing them anytime soon.
JK Scott 19:58:37
Meeting with Suppliers
Meeting with suppliers opens the lines of
communication and allows for dialog between the customer and supplier. The open
communication facilitates the sharing of information to ensure product and
delivery expectations are met.
The company I chose to discuss is Harris, Inc.
We manufacture heavy industrial equipment for the scrap and recycling industry.
In our implementation of Lean Manufacturing, we
frequently meet with our suppliers to discuss upcoming projects, changes to
BOM, packaging requirements and response to our changes and requests for
kitting.
Part of our supplier rating system involves the
responsiveness to our Lean initiatives. For example, we recently decided to
start a kitting project of hydraulic hoses. Instead of simply purchasing the hose
material and fittings, we wanted the hoses pre-manufactured and delivered in a
kit that was identified by a machine type. Our suppliers understand that our
rating system has a component that rates their response time to develop the
requested product.
Our supplier meeting accomplishes 2 things. (1) It provides us the opportunity to explain specifically what we want, requirements, specifications, lead times, replenish times, etc. (2) It gives the supplier a forum to explain their expectations for when they can deliver, any expected problems, requirements from us, etc. The results of this meeting are used to set a expected delivery schedule. This schedule is used in our rating scorecard. This is one of only a few areas that may be vendor or product specific. This open exchange ensures that both customer and supplier expectations have been established and that there are no surprises. In the event that a supplier encounters problems, they do have the ability to communicate their concerns. If they communicate problems in a timely manner, this will not adversely affect their score. This system is working very well and has been a great benefit to our lean effort.
Michael Ginn 19:58:22
Michael Ginn
Email: ginnmichael@hotmail.com
1. Corrective action program
The company I will reference to is a tier two
automotive supplier (CNC Machining). I worked there as a quality manager. This
company is a smaller batch/job shop (35-40 employees). It had a couple of jobs
that ran every day, but the rest of the parts were job shop stuff. At this
plant we would use a corrective action program to control the quality supplied
by our vendors.
A corrective action program is used to force a change in an organization. A
corrective action is only used after a problem is discovered. This is one
misconception between corrective action and preventive action. A preventive
action is implemented before a problem is discovered. A formal corrective
action program will follow a structured form or check off list, and it wise to
use a diversified group of employees to help solve the problem. A lot of times
the corrective action form will ask for someone in the department where is
problem occurred and several other people from other areas (Ex: engineering,
process control, quality). Like mentioned in the text the purpose of a
corrective action program is to fix a problem identified and use this action as
a way to reevaluate the expectations and goals of the supplier. An efficient
corrective action program will insure that the fix to the problem is permanent,
not just a band-aid. I created a simple creative action program through
Microsoft Access. In this database I would list all of my suppliers and
applicable information. If a problem was discovered from a supplier I would
issue them a corrective action request. This request was a structured form for
the supplier to fill out. It mirrored the Ford 8-D corrective action program. I
would give the supplier a certain amount of time to submit their corrective action
for my review. If I found the corrective action accurate and feasible then I
would import it into the Access database, but if it wasn’t sufficient then I
would ask the supplier to re-submit the corrective action within a week. After
the corrective action was completed and imported into Access, I could review
each supplier with in the database to see their performance. This performance
would be based on the amount of corrective action issued to each supplier and
their effectiveness of their corrective actions. This database would keep all
information about the supplier’s performance for the life of the supplier. This
impart created a benchmarking to compare suppliers performance over a long
period of time. That way supplier’s performance could also be used to trend
their performance.
Chris Wellman 19:57:59
Christopher J. Wellman
I work for Kollmorgen Corporation; we build Sensor System for the Department of
Defense. We are a medium size business with a rather large and diverse supplier
base. We are in the process of implementing a new supplier rating system.
Performance evaluation – ranking as described by
Bossert, allows you to rank your supplier so you can determine who you need to
work with the most so you can reduce cost improve Quality and on-time delivery.
The ranking can also help you to decide who you should do business with, if
designed correctly it will give you an overall cost not just the purchase cost.
With that kind of information the lowest bidding supplier may not be the lowest
overall lifecycle cost for the items you are buying. Armed with good ranking
you will do a better job of picking good suppliers for a given task.
We have gone out to our suppliers with our new
proposed plan for ranking them. What they told us is that they welcome the
ranking as long as they can validate the accuracy of the data we use in that
ranking. They do not want their performance judged on inaccurate data. Also,
our suppliers have insisted on data driven decisions, not just qualitative
judgments which are prone to differences of opinion.
The suppliers are anxious for good data accurate
report cards that they can use to improve. A fair and accurate report will
allow both Kollmorgen and our suppliers to be able to get to the real root
cause of problems not just implement band aid over a symptom. The “band aid”
approach results in reoccurrence of problems and our suppliers want to have
data they can effectively use.
Our managers insist on ensuring the tools we
implement are effective as well, so we do not exercise recourses chasing down
the wrong path. With accurate data we can focus limited recourses on the
supplier that need the most support. Accurate and complete data that the
supplier can validate goes a long way to getting good cooperation from the
supplier on proposed improvement projects. Our suppliers have told us if they
cannot verify the accuracy of our ranking they would not be willing to expend
resources on our proposed improvements generated by a ranking they cannot
verify.
Kym 19:57:53
Kimberly Gleiter
kgleiter@hedonline.com
SC Packaging is a producer of foam molded
packaging parts. I will be discussing the use of performance evaluation –
ranking as it pertains to this company. Their corporate procurement department
has established a supplier assessment program that is required to be utilized
by each of the 30+ plants. As shipments are received, issues (nonconformities)
regarding quality, delivery, customer service and sales are documented on an
assessment record and compared to shipments received. This data is compiled
throughout the year and on an annual basis (e.g. in January), the results of
the prior year are summarized on a supplier performance evaluation (SPE) form.
This form evaluates the suppliers overall annual performance as it pertains to
quality, costs, price and service and results in a grade between 1 (poor) and 5
(excellent). The SPE is forwarded to the corporate procurement department to be
included and sorted with the results from the other plants. This allows the
company to determine from a corporate perspective, which suppliers should
receive more business and sets apart those that are contenders for
partnerships. It also sheds light on suppliers that have the highest need for
improvement. When one plant reports an issue with a supplier it may appear
minor, but when compiled with all the issues discovered at the other sites it
may reveal a very significant problem. The downfall to this process is that it
only occurs annually. Though plants are to notify suppliers of issues throughout
the year, SC does not see the big picture until all the results are in from all
of the locations.
alan dial 19:57:05
Alan Dial-QA6640
Dalzell22a@yahoo.com
Briefly describe the company you have chosen.
I am going to discuss Harris Government
Communications Systems. Harris is an international communications and
information technology company serving government and commercial markets in
more than 150 countries. Harris is headquartered in Melbourne, Florida; the
company has annual sales of $4 billion and nearly 14,000 employees.
Briefly describe the application you will
discuss.
I am going to discuss Supplier Corrective Action
Program. Supplier Corrective Action Programs are critical for the maintaining
records and documentation on suppliers to evaluate and “trigger” root cause
analysis to ensure prompt resolution of supplier issues. I have seen in my own
company’s supplier corrective action program where a short-term solution is put
in place because many times long term fixes are lengthy to resolve. For the
corrective action to be complete many times an investigation needs to occur and
it can be tricky sometimes to make sure a supplier/customer relationship is not
jeopardized in the process.
Use a specific example to help explain the
application, and include as much detail as possible without exceeding the
thirty-minute time limit for your response.
For Harris, when it has been determined that a Supplier has not met
requirements, a Supplier Corrective Action Request (SCAR) will be submitted to
the responsible supplier with a due date of 45 calendar days after issuance.
Then the Supplier has an opportunity to address and correct the problem.
The corrective action response from the Supplier must include a description of:
1. The root cause of the discrepancy.
2. Action taken to correct the specified discrepancy.
3. Action taken to correct and prevent recurrence of the root cause of the
discrepancy.
4. Action taken to determine if other product is affected by the same or
similar discrepancy and action taken regarding susceptible product.
5. Action taken to correct the condition that allowed discrepant product to be
presented or shipped to Harris for acceptance.
6. Target dates for implementation of the identified corrective action.
Harris will evaluate the Supplier response to the SCAR and determine if the
response is adequate. If the corrective action response is inadequate, the
response will be disapproved and the supplier will be notified. The Supplier now
has generally 20 days to respond to the rejection. If the response takes longer
than 45 days or if continued performance is poor, the Supplier will be
downgraded to “Restricted Supplier” rating and there will be limited
solicitation from that organization.
Joel 19:56:11
jcenteno@twt.com
Company: Third Wave Technologies
The company manufactures molecular diagnostic devices used in the detection of
infectious diseases or genetic predispositions to drugs. The company’s products
include Class I, II, and III medical devices.
Application: Meeting with suppliers
In this application, a communication bridge is established between the supplier
and manufacturer. The supplier understands how all suppliers are rated based on
objective evidence and not on subjective data.
Example: Weekly Meetings with suppliers
The company has a product for which half of the manufacturing is done at a
supplier facility. The company sends to the supplier a “master” plate with 46
wells filled with frozen reagent. The supplier takes the plate, places it in an
automated machine while the reagent thaws and reaches liquid form. The
instrument aspirates the liquid from the “master” plate and dispenses into a
plastic card with 64 wells. One “master plate” can produce hundreds of cards.
Then the cards are sealed in a pouch, inspected and shipped to Third Wave for
further processing. The company performs incoming inspection of cards. This is
a very critical operation since the demand of the product is high, thus we are
always dependant on the supplier to always deliver a good product. This
supplier has a rating in our supplier system and ranks high in the list. We
have weekly conference calls with the supplier and we spend some time reviewing
the defects found at incoming inspection and how they relate to their rating.
More than once we have shared with them their ranking against other suppliers.
A few months ago, the facility changed location and we started to observe a higher
number of defects at incoming inspection. Within a week, the defects were so
high that we could not use any lot. The supplier rating suffered tremendously
and in our weekly calls we showed a graph of their rating per month and how it
had plummeted in the past weeks. We collaborated with them almost on a daily
basis and we sent teams to their facilities to investigate. The problem was
resolved and root cause identified. I thought that the rating systems helped
because they knew that they were high up in our list of suppliers and perhaps
we they saw the graph of their rating going down that contributed to expediting
their efforts in resolving the situation.
Prof. Atkins 19:34:42
CHAT ROOM DISCUSSION QUESTION:
You have thirty-minutes to answer the following
chat room question:
In the seventh chapter of “The Supplier
Management Handbook” on page 60 the author briefly discusses the following uses
of Supplier Rating Information:
1. Performance evaluation – ranking.
2. Action planning.
3. Meeting with suppliers.
4. Product and process audits.
5. Corrective action program.
6. Supplier recognition.
Select any ONE of the above six applications and
discuss it in detail as it applies to a specific example that you are familiar
with. You may discuss your example in context to any ONE of the following:
The company you now work for, or
a company you have worked for before, or
any company you are familiar with.
Your discussion should cover the following three
issues:
1. Briefly describe the company you have chosen.
2. Briefly describe the application you will discuss.
3. Use a specific example to help explain the application, and include as much
detail as possible without exceeding the thirty-minute time limit for your
response.