Clause 8.2.3.1 and Contract Review

Hey all. I'm running into some pushback from my customer service manager on contract review. We were reviewing a PO that does not list requirements line by line and instead references a finishing specification. The spec was reviewed to obtain key requirements, but several requirements stated "for part type X only" - she was not aware of whether this applied, so she simply did not flow it down to production.

In my mind this is a failure on our part, and we should have communicated with the customer if we needed clarification. In her mind, if the customer does not explicitly say on the PO it is part type X, we can consider it irrelevant. What do you guys think of this situation?

The organization shall ensure that it has the ability to meet the requirements for products and services to be offered to customers. The organization shall conduct a review before committing to supply products and services to a customer, to include:

a) requirements specified by the customer, including the requirements for delivery and postdelivery activities;
b) requirements not stated by the customer, but necessary for the specified or intended use, when known;
c) requirements specified by the organization;
d) statutory and regulatory requirements applicable to the products and services;
e) contract or order requirements differing from those previously expressed.​

 

I agree, and the reasoning I was given is that if the customer doesn't explicitly say it's that part type, it's on them if we assume it doesn't apply.

 

You're telling me. I mean this clearly wouldn't conform to the standard, right?

Unfortunately we have mostly green managers who are not familiar with ISO/IATF and see it as an obstacle more than anything else.

 

Frankly, this has nothing to do with ISO/IATF. It’s just a good business practice to know and/or confirm what your customer wants. If there is any question, we have multiple ways of communicating theses days. I’d keep the standard out of the discussion and approach it as how are we going to confirm what we need to do for the customer.