🚀 go-pugleaf

4.11.1 says: " ... procedures to control, calibrate and maintain inspection,
masuring antest equipment USED BY THE SUPPLIER TO DEMONSTRATE CONFORMANCE OF
PRODUCT TO THE SPECIFIED REQUIREMENTS."

People I worked with and I interpreted it to mean that instruments used for
other purposes, e.g. for intermediate verification, when another later test
will demonstrate conformance, do not necessarily need to pass the strict rules
of this element of QS9000. Of course some judgement makes sense here: if the
measurement is critical and the small expected deviations from nominal value
can have an important impact, it would still make sense to calibrate. If only
supervisors need to demonstrate, your method is workable, otherwise you may end
with a different population of rulers that need strict calibration, perhaps
even less than you intend to calibrate now.

In other words, function of where the rulers are used, I would calibrate some
and not others and then I would mark them accordingly, write work instructions
and train personnel about the difference.

HP Authorized Customer wrote:

> List Members:
>
> I would like to present my company's current QS9000 dilemma in the hopes
> some of you may have experienced this dilemma and have sought reasonable
> answers.  Let me explain...
>
> ....my company is a small Tier one supplier to many automobile
> manufacturers.  Last year, we received our initial QS-9000 certification.
> As many of you are probably familiar, the systems that are built to pass
> that first audit are not the most sound or efficient systems a company can
> have.  As such, a lot of tweaking occurrs after the auditors leave.  This
> leads me to my company's dilemma:  our company issues steel rulers to each
> employee to assist them in determining whether or not their production
> output meets standards listed in control plans or operational guides.
> Under chapter 4.11 of QS-9000, it states all tools that are used to
> determine conformance of a product to stated tolerances must be calibrated.
>  This means one must calibrate each steel ruler on our manufacturing floor.
>  This also means tracking, controlling, and dispositioning over three
> hundred rulers!
>
> Has any of you been down this road before?  How did you "get around" this
> statement in the QS-9000 bible?  My thought is to label each steel ruler as
> "For Reference Only", and only calibrate the rulers held by the floor
> supervisors and their lead operators.  This would bring my quality
> department's calibration responsibility for steel rulers down from over 300
> per year to roughly 20.  It would also make tracking and controlling these
> rulers much more manageable.
>
> I am desperately seeking precidence in this matter.  My company won't have
> a full blown audit until December, and I want to ensure whatever procedure
> we put in place will have some time to gel before the auditors walk in.
>
> Thanks in advance for your assistance
>
> John W. Beemster
> Quality Assurance Engineer
> Bestop, Incorporated



--
Eric Stern
Tel/Fax: (514) 483-6264
5386 West Broadway
Montreal, QC, Canada, H4V 2A4
eric@cam.org