How Many Tiers

Hi

I am a supplier to OEMs such as Ford, JLR etc. One of my suppliers has notified us that one of his suppliers has changed his heat treatment process. My supplier has done the correct thing telling us, but do I need tell the OEM. Is this not a case of my supplier should manage his supplier but notify me and that is the end. If not how many tiers down do I need to go before I stop telling the OEM. Imagine the heat treatment company changed his energy supplier, would I need to communicate that....opinions welcome. Think it comes in section 8.4 but still not clear

Thanks in advance

 

As for the OEM, I would venture to say they would have specific requirements (CSR-Customer Specific Requirements) detailing what they require for such a change and if/when they require a PPAP. (Production Part Approval Process) The AIAG PPAP manual would be a good resource to reference, which outlines what the general requirements are. There is a reason all parties need to be notified because a significant change like that can affect everyone involved. Once the OEM receives the change request, they would submit PPAP requirements to you, and you in turn would hand down similiar requirements to your supplier and that supplier would require a PPAP from the heat treat supplier. So it would essentially be 3 PPAP submissions rolled into one to be submitted to the OEM. I don't believe energy suppliers would warrant a notification, as this is at each company's discretion and does not affect the quality of the product.

 

So your problem is the "control of changes" requirements are pretty broad. But the real world is not so broad. My own personal opinion is that if a supplier is complying with a public standard, then as long as they continue to comply to that standard then notifications of changes aren't needed. If they are heat treating to a public standard, then I would probably forego notice. If they are heat treating to an internal, say Ford, standard, then I would notify.

In our case it has to do with metals and the ASTM standards. There are a handful of steel mills who can produce what we need. They produce to the published ASTM standard. They sell to distributors and we buy from the distributor who does some value added slitting. Thing is, the distributor usually buys from several of the mills. Customer says I need to notify of "changes." So if I buy the same material, from the same mill, at different distributors -- I have to notify of the changed "supplier?" If I use the same distributor, but he's buying the same material from different mills -- I have to notify of the new mill? I pretty much told my customer that I would be contact him every day to notify of the changes.

 

Good day @Eric Sykes , and welcome to the site.

Risk. The standard purports/emphasizes "risk based thinking" and requires the organization to 'determine the risks that need to be addressed' and 'take action" . What is the risk to your organization if things go bad? What is the risk if the changed process fails to achieve the required outcomes? What is the risk if those unintended outcomes reach your OEM? What are the risks if those unintended outcomes reach the market/end user? There has been notification of change, but any collection of evidence to give confidence that the NEW is same as better than OLD ? (I would want to know that and see that data).

Process changes are often driven by COST...and that doesn't always equate to same/better output.

I would counsel that your organization weighs the risk to YOUR ORGANIZATION and then take the necessary action to mitigate/remove that risk. It's your organization's QMS/risk. Think and act accordingly/selfishly.

Hope this helps.
Be well.

 

TS 16949, pre AIAG, had a specific cover for this, it said it was a suppliers responsibilty to manage there sub supplier, but since AIAG or ISO 9001 I cant find a specific, all the comments above I agree with, but was hoping for a black and white answer, The OEM is Ford and their STA is pretty good, was just checking before starting Change Management and PPAP. Thanks everyone... its good to talk