QA6640 Chat Room Transcript March 14, 2007

QA6640 Chat Room Transcript March 14, 2007

Prof. Atkins 20:23:04
The chat room is closed for this evening. It will reopen next Wednesday at 7:35 pm.

Prof. Atkins 20:12:24
If there are no questions, we can close the chat room for this evening.

Prof. Atkins 20:07:02
The thirty minutes are now up. Responses posted after this message appears will not be evaluated for chat room particapation credit.

I have received Proctor Forms from the following students:

Michael Ginn (need proctor’s email address)
Kimberly Gleiter
Daira Komic
Bradley McGuire
Natasha Romero
James Scott
Glenn Stevens
Christopher Wellman (need proctor’s email address).

ALL of the above proctors are approved. However, two of the above proctor forms did not transmit clearly by fax and I could not read the proctor’s email address. As noted above, those two students need to send me their proctor’s correct email address by email.

If you have questions you may ask them at this time.

Komic 20:04:01

Company: Kodak is in the world of photography known not only for making camera’s, camera films, and photography, but also for images used in a variety of leisure, medical, business, entertainment and scientific applications.

In the process of the supplier certification the Select Supplier step usually starts when a customer decide to do business with a supplier based on their performance and quality of the product and services and not based on price alone. A customer usually selects few good suppliers to establish the supplier certification system and then extend it to other suppliers. However, a customer must be able to support this program by having resources available to perform suppliers quality system audits and review their performances.

To keep its world-class performance Kodak utilizes the best suppliers which meet or exceed their standards of performance in quality and the reliability, cost, and delivery of the products and services provided to them. Kodak developed the system called the Supplier Quality Process, or SQP to manage its supply base.

One of the SQP elements is Select Suppliers for the process.

One of the Kodak selected supplier Certified Supplier is Pitney Bowes Management Services (PBMS). PBMS was selected based on their historically good performance which met Kodac’s world-class standards for its suppliers to provide quality product.

gstevens 20:03:11
Glenn Stevens
Email: Annandale@msn.com

Company Selected: Cable and Wireless Limited. Cable and Wireless is a primary provider of telecommunication services in the British Commonwealth. I worked with the company while I lived in Jamaica as Software Systems Analyst. The company provided local and long distance service throughout the Caribbean. The company had to manage its customers, provide service, supporting rating and billing of calls.

Supplier Company Selected: The company was desirous of securing a company to provide an information management system to manage its customer base, provide rating and billing and handle customer inquiries. The company selected a software company located in Florida, by the name of AUXCO to provide the software service solution. The company had previously developed a software to manage customer accounting, rating and billing and its product was in use by some of the major Bell Operating Companies in the United States. It had a a highly qualified technical staff and knew the telecommunication industry well. It had two regional offices, from which it provided on call support.

Reasons for Selecting AUXCO as the supplier of the required service:
Cable and Wireless had prepared a Request For Proposal (RFP) detailing all the requirements to be satisfied by any candidate supplier. The document provided the details of the features and functionality required. There were several components on the RFP.
• Company Profile: Information relating to the financial health of the company, management, number of employees, organizational composition, history and tenure in the particular market place.
• System Requirments to be Satisfied: Ability to create new customers, ability to generate service orders for the placement, change or cancellation of services, ability to rate telephone calls made by customers rounded to the nearest minute, ability to generate on demand reports and standard reports, ability to bill customers, provide dunning and collection capabilities.
• System Technology: The system had to be compatible with IBM mainframe (4380 series), must be written in Cobol.
• Support and Maintenance: The company must be able to provide warranty maintenance for the first 6 months of service after installation. Supplier had to be able to train local developers and provide maintenance support based on the critieria defined.

These were some of the more important information contained on the RFP but there were additional conditions that were included that were deemed important.

The RFP was distributed to several companies internationally and each was requested to respond within the 60 days with a formal written response to the RFP.

Less than 10 companies responded initially. A steering committee was created that reviewed the responses and had authority to make the final decision. Some of the responses were not complete, critical areas were omitted. Others were not able to satisfy the more important requirements and introduced cost negotiations up front. Others wanted the company to provide more information before they could make a final response.

AUXCO stood out from the rest, because not only did they complete the RFP response most efficiently they presented the RFP response in person, with the president of the company, his CIO and Business Development Vice president. They were willing to work with Cable and Wireless, and most importantly (even though not being the cheapest) provided the most attractive maintenance support. The company knew that there would be problems in the post installation of the software from prior experience and this area was crucial. Not only would AUXCO provide the ongoing maintenance called for in the RFP, they would provide a live person on site for the first 30 days after installation. The terms for payment was also agreeable.

The company steering committee members also visited the offices of Auxco, when it seemed that it was the clear favorite. Cable and Wireless obtained references from the accounts provided by Auxco, and this was a key factor in the decision making process. Most of the references said that AUXCO treated them more like partners than just another supplier. They were very hands-on and were on site during the crisis periods doing whatever it took to ensure the system was working.

These were some of the factors that were used in selecting Auxco as the supplier for the software product.

Rich Weaver 20:02:50
Company: GM
Supplier: Valeo
Product: Body side moldings

Valeo supplied body side moldings to many GM facilities. At Tarrytown, we had our share of problems: surface finish discrepancies, adhesive failures, inability to remove backing tape for the adhesive.

We documented our problems via the PR/R (Problem Reporting / Resolution) system, but the problems continued. The supplier was put into what we called “Level I containment”, in which all outgoing shipments had to have an extra level of inspection at the source. (GM has not done regular receiving inspection in many years; the volume of parts received make it prohibitively expensive. We expect all parts to be good.)

After seeing no improvement, the situation escalated to Level II containment. An outside organization is contracted to 100% inspect parts, either at the supplier’s facility, or at a temporary facility. The supplier has to pay for the inspection and related costs.

This was the ‘significant emotional event’ that helped to rectify the situation. They approached GM, and expressed a desire to keep the business, and to improve their quality. (Multiple assembly plants were having problems.)
1. As part of their turnaround, they made a series of management changes that were designed to make quality a priority.
2. They asked for help from our Supplier Quality organization in Detroit to look at their processes, and to suggest improvements. (Except in rare cases, assembly-plant personnel do not visit / certify suppliers; this is handled by Corporate personnel.)
3. They performed a series of PFMEAs (product and process) to identify those processes most susceptible to failure. (I’m a little surprised that this term has not appeared in our text.)
4. They began to share attribute and variable data with the plants about their assembly processes and inspection results. To my knowledge, this was not a requirement; they did it to convince us of the improvements being made.
5. They sent representatives to the assembly plants involved to act as liaisons for quality problems. Having a ‘source rep’ on site is a great help, both to the supplier and the purchaser. They know the contacts in the manufacturing location, and can get immediate help. They can vouch for the accuracy of the assembly plant’s complaints. They also have ‘outsider eyes’, and can see material handling practices in use in the assembly plant that are not conducive to good quality. They also arrange for expedited material if needed.
6. They asked for help from GM packaging – some of the problems seen in the plant were the result of poorly designed packaging schemes, and not product discrepancies from their facility.

Eventually, the discrepancies dried up, and almost completely disappeared. There was a new, mutual respect between the source and the assembly plant. We could see that they were committed to providing us with a quality product. After several weeks in Level II containment, they were permitted to go back to Level I containment (100% additional inspection and certification.) After several months, that was no longer required. They choose to continue this additional inspection until they were sure that their processes were capable of producing nearly defect-free parts.

Several months later, they made the decision to end the redundant inspection. They let us know that the plant had never run better, scrap and reworks were significantly reduced, and throughput was increased. From that point until Tarrytown closed, they were one of our best suppliers, and we were confident of receiving a quality product.

el hamraoui hanane 20:00:45
The company I chose to use as example of using the selection of suppliers for certification is Boeing, the world’s leading aerospace company.
Boeing selects existing suppliers for certification and uses for this purpose the Preferred Supplier Certification Process, a tool that helps Boeing identify and recognize the high-performing suppliers. Under the Boeing Supplier Certification Program, suppliers are evaluated in six areas: management, quality, delivery, cost, technology, and statistical process control. The program consists of three levels: Bronze, Silver, and Gold, with Gold suppliers achieving the highest rating. Of Boeing's approximately 5,500 suppliers, 631 are certified suppliers. Of those, 76 percent are at the Bronze level, 23 percent are recognized at the Silver level, and only 1 percent are ranked at the Gold level.
Preferred Supplier Certification (PSC) involves a series of processes that touch a supplier’s entire business operation. Boeing invites selected suppliers to participate in the PSC process. PSC identifies and honors suppliers that provide Boeing with the highest-quality products and services, delivered on time and at best value. PSC focuses on improved relationships with affordable, high-performing, strategically important suppliers. It also promotes process and
performance improvements throughout the supply chain.

Supplier certification then includes evaluation of suppliers in three areas:
• Advanced Quality System
• Business Processes
• Demonstrated Performance

Michael Ginn 20:00:20
Michael Ginn
Email: ginnmichael@hotmail.com

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. Being the Quality Manger I would have to maintain an approved supplier list. This list is only for the suppliers that were performing up to standard and would pass routine supplier audits. We used supplier development tools on some suppliers that showed extra potential. These were normally suppliers that we had a great working relationship with. One supplier we developed was a casting company. This company provided our entire die casting for machining. They were a great supplier, but would have trouble holding tolerances for time to time. We approached this supplier to see if they were open to conversations on some improvement activities. They said ok! We meet face to face at their plant to review some topics of potential improvement areas. They choose the tolerance topic, due to that was the biggest problem on the radar. After jointly reviewing the problem and their process within several onsite meeting, we came to a conclusion that we could open our tolerance up by 0.025 microns. This change would keep them in tolerance, and this was within their normal variation of the process. The improvement allowed us to provide additional opportunities for business to the already excellent die-caster. It was win-win for both customer and supplier.

Brad McGuire 20:00:12
Brad McGuire
QA6640
bmcguire@spsu.edu

1) I will be using Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company in Marietta, GA as my example parent company

2) I will discuss one of Lockheed’s suppliers on the F-22 program: LAI. LAI produces water-jet-processed screen panels using processes such as five-axis machining, hot forming, chemical milling, plating, routing laser welding and electro-polishing.

3)Lockheed set forth strict guidelines when choosing suppliers for work on the F-22. To be selected, the supplier had to show than could consistently meet selection criteria such as, quality, schedule and cost. And to effectively show how they achieved these criterion, LAI had to, as Bossert states, “share process and performance information”. They weren’t able to win the contract by simply reporting their results. Other criteria included an ability to successfully demonstrate proper usage of an SPC system including zero rejections and non-conformance cost for a time up to 6 months before the supplier contract award. Further, the supplier had to maintain a 98% ratio of on-time deliveries to purchase order schedule and show favorable price trends and purchase order administration. LAI met these criterion early in the F-22 program and continues to maintain an elite ‘STAR’ supplier rating today in which post-delivery inspections and audits are not needed and therefore significantly reduced.

Chris Wellman 19:58:05
Christopher J. Wellman

Selection of Supplier for Certification:

I have selected my company. Our Company is Kollmorgen Corporation, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Danaher Corporation. We make large sensor systems for Military applications.

I have chosen Advance Manufacturing; they are a machine shop that does complex work for our company. This is a privately owned Company and we felt the were a good fit for certification.

We have experienced that Advance is open to teaming with us on projects. They have given us good feedback with regard to the initiatives we have started with them. Further, Advance fits Bossert’s recommendation on page 93, that you do not pick a problem racked company. We felt that a successful supplier certification process with Advance would not be real hard and it would provide a good payback in terms of savings to our product verification efforts.

Advance showed the right attitude toward defect prevention and has invested in the infrastructure necessary to relieve us of the burden we were experiencing while verifying their product. Advance took part in our kick-off meeting with other suppliers for the pilot program we used to launch our supplier certification process and showed leadership through their willingness to conduct training of their personnel on the procedures required by our program.

Personnel who attended our up-front meetings showed genuine interest in taking part in the pilot project. We felt this interest was paramount in success, so Advance was a key supplier to help us launch the program. Personnel at Advance have taken their responsibility seriously and this has helped to contain problems at their source, so as to not perturb our assembly by receipt of bad product.

This has been a very symbiotic relationship. We are able to reduce our cost of verifying incoming product from Advance. Advance has been able to eliminate delay with our incoming verification process. In addition, the success of this program reduces the cost to our customer and makes us all happy.

Natasha_Romero 19:56:59
Natasha Romero
nromero@spsu.edu

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. We recently went through an evaluation of different requirements management software tools. There are several COTS products which are available for configuration and use. We selected the Serena product Requirements Traceability Management (RTM) software tool.

3. During our evaluation period we decided to briefly describe the requirements that the requirements management tool must have and desired functionality. Examples of must have requirements were functionality such as the capability to import and export into Microsoft Word and the ability to have traceability between requirements, specifications, and test cases. Desired functionality included having a user friendly interface and minimum amount of set up time. We performed our evaluation by inviting the vendors to do demonstrations of their products to us so that way we could see the product in use and also researching the available documentation about functionality of the product from the vendor’s websites. The three main contenders were the Serena RTM, DOORS, and Team Center requirements management tools. The Serena RTM tool was chosen because it met the majority of our requirements as did the other tools but the Serena tool had an edge. We learned that they were going to be releasing a new version of the tool which would address the remaining requirements that they currently did not meet within the near future. We also chose this tool because we had previous experience with Serena’s help support. We are users of another of their COTS tools. We knew that this supplier has a good help support system in place with very knowledgeable staff. Another selling point which also pushed us towards this supplier is that they recommended a consultant to us, which Serena works closely with, that would be able to come in and give us a jump start on the set up of the tool.

J Scott 19:56:19
J Scott
QA6640
Jscott6@spsu.edu

Select Suppliers for the Process

The company I chose to discuss is Delta Airlines. Delta operates a vast supplier network for spare aircraft parts and materials. The ability to select suppliers and acquire quality aircraft parts in a timely manner is crucial to the safe and efficient operation of the aircraft. Due to fact that airlines require parts, materials and fuel at many cities throughout the world, it is crucial that suppliers be selected based on sound processes and the ability to provide quality resources to support the operation. Suppliers are considered, in many cases, on their proximity to airport operations and logistical ability. For the purpose of this discussion, aircraft fuel will be examined. It is vital that fuel be available, clean, tested, and continuously monitored.

Supplier selection in this industry is somewhat unique. To aid in supplier selection, airlines have formed a cooperative audit program whereby one airline takes credit for the supplier certification that another completes. This cooperative is called the Coordinating Agency for Supplier Evaluation (C.A.S.E.). CASE is a nonprofit coalition of industrial companies dedicated to:
Exchanging and publishing non-prejudicial supplier dataØ
ReducingØ the proliferation of redundant supplier assessments
Reducing supplierØ management costs

Airline Quality Assurance auditors receive specialized CASE training and must be certified to a standard training and competence level in order to perform the audit. Audits are performed using standardized CASE approved checklists. The checklists are developed to gauge the suppliers Quality program, management structure, internal processes, inspection, and testing programs.

When an airline is considering a supplier for fuel, the QA department will check the CASE registry to determine if a supplier is approved and current. If the supplier is not, QA will be required to perform an audit. Each supplier undergoes a periodic audit and these are rotated thought airlines via a CASE audit schedule.

Discrepancies or shortcomings uncovered through CASE audits are handled much like a regular audit with corrective action requests being issued. Findings and corrective actions are posted to the CASE registry for members to view. This program greatly aids in the selection of suppliers who can deliver a quality fuel products to support the airline, in a timely manner.

alan dial 19:49:36
Alan Dial
Alan.dial@aleris.com
Mason & Hanger-Silas Mason Co., Inc.
Mason & Hanger (M&H) is a full-discipline Architectural-Engineering-Construction firm headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky. M&H was founded in 1827 and is the oldest continuously operating engineering and construction company in the United States. M&H is a member of the Day & Zimmermann family of companies.

I found M&H online and they do not identify who their suppliers are that have been selected. However, I can talk to their program for selection of suppliers. M&H began using a three-level supplier certification program 1994. M&H chooses suppliers that pass a part by part inspection by scoring a minimum of 85% on a grading of quality, delivery and service. M&H benefits through this certification by reducing the amount of in-process inspection for select vendors. The supplier incentivises the supplier by offering them by expediting the payment process. The second level of certification involves the performance of a supplier audit. If the vendor passes and accepts responsibility for performing internal audits, then they have started the process of forming a partnership and are incentivized by receiving a 5% price consideration. The third level requires the supplier to use SPC and gives the supplier a 10% price consideration. This is good for M&H because the thought is that the use fo SPC by the supplier will yield less rework and better products. At the third level, M&H will assist the supplier to establish its SPC practices. The first step of supplier selection is through evaluation of its products and services and they can continually escalate up their certification process if they accept the terms and conditions of the next level. M&H has reduced its number of suppliers from 100 to about 50 since its inception.
http://www.masonandhanger.com/

Prof. Atkins 19:32:10
CHAT ROOM DISCUSSION QUESTION:

You have thirty-minutes to answer the following chat room question:

In the eleventh chapter of “The Supplier Management Handbook” on page 93 and 94 the author briefly discusses Step TWO of the Supplier Certification Process. Step 2 is “Select Suppliers for the Process.”

Discuss in detail the criteria that would be important in selecting a supplier using 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 supplier that the company selected.
3. Explain why the supplier was selected, and include as much detail as possible without exceeding the thirty-minute time limit for your response.

Chris Wellman 19:31:41
Why was fax mandatory for proctor form? It would have been easier to send e-mail.

Prof. Atkins 19:30:21
Alan Dial:

According to the Course Syllabus on the internet web site, details about the Term Project will be posted on the web site on April 3, 2007.

Chris Wellman 19:30:04
proctor email address sent.

Chris Wellman 19:27:35
Prof. will send proctor e-mail to you by e-mail.

Michael Ginn 19:26:48
Prof. Atkins, I just emailed the address to you.

alan dial 19:26:43
Prof.Atkins, when will the term project assignment be posted?

Prof. Atkins 19:25:09
Alan Dial:

You extension of time was approved and I will review your proctor form when I receive it.

alan dial 19:24:05
Sorry for the delay. But I did not know who would be my proctor. Thank you for your support.

alan dial 19:23:29
Prof. Atkins, I have selected who my proctor is going to be and I will be getting them to submit it to you soon. You may recall you gave me an extension. I relocated for a new job and I am on the road.

Prof. Atkins 19:20:33
I have received Proctor Forms from the following students:

Michael Ginn (need proctor’s email address)
Kimberly Gleiter
Daira Komic
Bradley McGuire
Natasha Romero
James Scott
Glenn Stevens
Christopher Wellman (need proctor’s email address).