Material certification and traceability requirements

Hi everyone.

I'm looking for some advice here. I work in Construction and want to know what are the expectations of a subcontractor in respect to material certification and traceability requirements.

The company I work for carries out installations using equipment and materials manufactured and supplied by others (suppliers) We are an electrical contractor and examples of our installations include;

1-Cable ladder rack installation-material is purchased by ourselves from supplier for installation
2-Cable installation-various types and specifications purchased by ourselves based on clients specifications for installation.


Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

Good day @Kodirl and welcome to the site.
This is a question your organization will need to answer. In clause 8.5.2 ISO 9001 leaves it to the organization to determine required and applied traceability. Clause 8.5.2 uses the terms "when it is necessary" and "when traceability is a requirement".

In regards to material certs, similar language is used by the standard. Clause 8.4 your organization to ensure suppliers provide conforming product. Does the confirmation of material certs provided upon delivery give your organization the information needed to ensure "externally provided...products conform to requirements"?...(or does your organization have/utilize other methods to confirm that ?)

Consider this:
1- What does your customer require in regards to traceability and the provision and/or review and/or retention of material certifications?
2- What does YOUR organization need in case of a failure in the field and/or a need to replace nonconforming supplied product? (in otherwords, think selfishly. Regardless of the requirements of the standard, if your supplier notified you that a certain lot or heat of supplied product was defective, what would your organization need in order to track down and replace that product? If there was a failure in the field suspected to be tied to supplied product, what traceability and/or evidence of conformance would YOUR organization need to perform the proper root cause investigation?

Summary:
As you can see, the standard is not overly prescriptive beyond ensuring your supplied product is conforming and "necessary" traceability exists. My council is to determine what is needed to protect your customers and your organization and incorporate those requirements (sustain-ably) into your management system.

Hope this helps.
Be well.

 

Thank you John for your reply. That has cleared it up for me.