Supplier Quality Management Medical Device Academy

Qualifying a Supplier That Doesn’t Have a Quality Management System

Posted by Rob Packard on March 9, 2012

This blog proposes a simple solution for how to qualify a supplier that doesn’t have a quality management system.

You are ignoring the obvious question of why doesn’t a medical device supplier have a quality management system. If you are a contract manufacturer, you should ensure that you have a clause in your supplier qualification procedure that says you don’t need to qualify suppliers that are mandated by your customers. If your response to this suggestion is “Duh,” you haven’t conducted many supplier audits of contract manufacturers. As my buddy, Tim says, “You need to leave some ‘wiggle room’ in your procedures.” This is also good advice for all 19 of your top-level procedures that get audited each year.

For the remaining suppliers you are considering to add to your Approved Supplier List (ASL), you need a SIMPLE set of criteria for how you qualified the supplier. Guess what that magical document should be? (Answer to be provided shortly)

Many companies use a supplier self-evaluation survey. I’m almost certain that I have bashed these nearly useless documents before, but if I failed to do this, …most of them are problematic. A one-page supplier information form seems more appropriate. No signature required! And please make it a Word document.

The supplier qualification procedure needs to be generic for all raw materials and services you purchase. The problem is that everything you purchase has different requirements. So instead of wasting your time with writing one procedure that has wiggle room for every single product or service, you will ever purchase, don’t even try. Instead, write a SIMPLE procedure. This procedure needs only to be one page long. It needs four requirements:

1) New suppliers must complete a supplier information form and submit it to the company. This should be updated at least once every 12 months and whenever there is a change to the information provided (i.e., – notification of change).

2) You need at least two people to approve the addition to the Quality Management System. This can be done on your ECO or DCO form for changing the ASL. If the supplier is customer-mandated, you need the customer’s approval and the purchasing managers. If the supplier is internally selected, you need at least purchasing and QA to approve it.

3) You should have an objective criterion (probably more than one requirement) that is product/service-related for acceptance of the supplier. This criterion SHALL be under document control, and the revision shall be communicated to the supplier when orders are placed. See ISO 13485:2003, section 7.4.2 (Purchasing Information).

4) Finally, you need a reference to your purchasing procedure (one of the required 19 documents) and your supplier re-evaluation procedure.

If you have not already guessed, the “magical” document is called a purchasing specification or raw material specification for raw material items. For capital equipment, you may require that a capital expenditure justification be completed instead of the purchasing specification. For a calibrated instrument, tool, or fixture, you may request that requirements of the instrument/tool/fixture are documented in the applicable procedure or work instruction. For example, for measurement of this cannula, a calibrated optical comparator is required with 20x magnification. Reference the inspection procedure or drawing, and you are done.

For those of you that would like to keep your ASL shorter, which I recommend, if you don’t think you will be using the supplier more than once, you might want to give the buyer the option of documenting the purchasing specification on the purchasing requisition instead. This might be very helpful for those engineers that are doing R&D or validation work. For example, I need a bag of resin that meets the following raw material specifications—but we don’t currently use this material, and I’m not ready to submit one for approval. That’s why the engineer is ordering the bag of resin. She needs to test the material in the application and gather some preliminary data as justification for the new raw material specification.

There are 100’s of other ways to qualify your suppliers, and many of them work well if you follow your procedure. If your procedure is SIMPLE, your Monday’s will be better.

Tags: Quality Management System, supplier qualification

Posted in: Supplier Quality Management

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Supplier Management: Who Should Be Conducting Supplier Audits in Your Company?

Posted by Rob Packard on March 2, 2012

This blog reviews which a vital supplier management issue, which personnel should be conducting specific types of audits for the company.

Today, I would like to start by asking a question: Who does supplier audits at your company?

I believe that there are three primary purposes for conducting supplier audits:

1) “For cause” audit, where the auditor is investigating the root cause of a nonconformity

2) Qualification audit, where the auditor is assessing if the supplier should be added to the Approved Supplier List (ASL)

3) Re-evaluation audit, where the auditor is verifying that the supplier is maintaining proper production controls

The problem with these three audits is that most companies send the same people—regardless of the purpose. Usually, companies send a purchasing manager or a supplier qualify engineer to conduct supplier audits. Occasionally, the two will do a team audit. Resources for auditing suppliers are tight in most companies. Therefore, I do not recommend this “one size fits all” approach. Instead, I believe that each purpose should be matched up with a specific type of auditor.

“For cause” audits need a supplier quality engineer who has strong investigational skills and will be able to identify the root cause(s) of a nonconformity. The auditor should also be capable of training the supplier on how to respond effectively to a Supplier Corrective Action Request.

Qualification audits are ideal opportunities for a team approach. There are quality issues to consider, but there are also financial scheduling and capacity issues. A cross-functional team approach works best in this case. A team also reduces the potential for biased individuals making inappropriate recommendations.

Re-evaluation audits should not be conducted by purchasing or supplier quality engineers. The reason is that neither position is typically responsible for performing an incoming inspection. If you don’t perform inspections regularly, you may not be aware of all the problems to search for. Therefore, I recommend using QC inspectors for this activity. QC inspectors know precisely which quality issues have been found recently because the QC inspectors identify the defects during incoming inspection, in-process inspections, and during final inspections.

I don’t think that my approach to “For Cause” or Qualification audits is unusual. However, using QC inspectors to perform supplier audits is uncommon. There are two other reasons why I believe companies should consider this approach. First, inspectors would get a rare opportunity to go on a business trip and be reimbursed for the travel. For those employees that rarely travel, this can be an opportunity for recognition by management and a perk (i.e., – free meal, lodging, and travel). Second, supplier quality engineers could easily fill in for a QC inspector to become more familiar with parts and components, as well.