Supplier quality systems: holding approvals, concessions and corrective actions as records

Approval packages that outlive the engineer who ran them

A part approval is a bundle: the drawing revision approved against, dimensional results, material certificates, process evidence, capability data where it was required, and the signature that accepted it. Held as a folder of attachments named by whoever assembled them, it becomes unusable within a couple of staff changes. Held as a record linked to part, supplier, revision and status, it answers the questions that actually arise — which revision is approved, what expired, what was approved conditionally, and which parts are running on an approval that was never completed because the launch was urgent.

Inspection results should reach the scorecard without retyping

Incoming inspection generates the most objective supplier data you own, and it is routinely stranded in a separate quality application or on paper at the goods-in bench. Where results flow automatically into the supplier record, a rising defect trend becomes visible while it is still cheap to address. Where they do not, supplier performance discussions run on anecdote and on whichever failure was most recent and most painful. The integration is usually modest work; the obstacle is normally that quality and purchasing own different systems and neither budget covers the join.

A concession needs an expiry and an owner

Accepting non-conforming material to keep a line running is a legitimate decision. Letting the acceptance become the new normal is not. Every concession should carry the deviation permitted, the quantity or period it covers, the reason, who authorised it, and the date it lapses. Without an expiry, temporary acceptance quietly becomes the specification, and the drawing tolerance that everybody works around stops being questioned. A report of open and repeatedly renewed concessions is one of the more revealing documents a quality manager can produce, and it is trivial to generate if the data was structured.

A supplier reply is not a closed corrective action

Most supplier corrective actions close on a returned form describing what happened and promising more care. That is a reply, not a closure. A closure needs containment confirmed, the cause identified at a level that explains why the control failed, the change made to a document or process, and evidence from subsequent deliveries that the change worked. Verification should sit with the receiving plant rather than being taken on trust, and the system should keep the action open until that verification exists. Closing on promise is the reason the same defect returns.

The scorecard is only as honest as its provenance

Supplier ratings lose credibility fast when suppliers can dispute the inputs. Delivery performance computed from receipt timestamps counts material held at your own gate; quality performance based on rejections misses defects found at the line and attributed elsewhere; any measure ignoring the volume behind it flatters low-activity suppliers. Define each measure by the transaction it is derived from, make the underlying detail visible to the supplier, and accept that a rating nobody can trace to events will be argued about instead of acted on.

Frequently asked questions

Should supplier quality sit in the quality system or the purchasing system?

The records belong with quality because they are evidence, and the actions belong where the commercial relationship is managed. Splitting them is normal; leaving them unconnected is the problem. Whichever platform holds the approval and inspection data, the supplier record in the purchasing system needs to show status and open actions, so a buyer never places business with a supplier whose approval has lapsed or who has an unresolved containment in progress.

How do we handle a supplier who will not use our system?

Do not make their reluctance your data gap. Keep the record on your side, enter their submissions yourself, and factor the administrative burden into the sourcing decision, because it is a real cost of that relationship. For a small supplier this is often reasonable. For a strategically important one it is a warning sign about their own quality management, since a supplier unable to produce approval evidence in any structured form usually cannot produce it internally either.

What evidence should we require before closing a supplier corrective action?

Confirmation that suspect material was contained on both sides, a cause explanation that accounts for why the existing control failed rather than blaming an individual, the specific document or process change made, and results from deliveries received after the change took effect. Ask for the changed control plan or work instruction rather than a description of it. If the supplier cannot produce a document showing what changed, nothing durable has changed.