Quality Assurance documentation help

[Leylandeye]

Can anyone point me in the right direction as to how I go about providing quality documentation.

I am currently buying materials from a company which is providing certificates to me to EN10204 type 2.1 and selling the goods on at a healthy mark up.

Moving forward, my customer has requested the same kind of QA document from me but I'm reluctant to pass on the certificates we are getting as it has my suppliers name on it.

Is it legal for me to transpose the information off the supplier certificate onto our own letterhead and call it a EN10204 type 2.1?

We don't have a formal quality system but do have standard procedures and can trace orders back to specific supplies. Do I legally need a formal quality system and how do I go about getting this?

Any help appreciated.

[Ean218]

Leylandeye said:

I am currently buying materials from a company which is providing certificates to me to EN10204 type 2.1 and selling the goods on at a healthy mark up.

Are you buying raw material with certs and then machining it into a finished product?

If so you just need to create you own certificate of conformity stating that the product conforms to the requirements of the order.

If ever audited by your customer you show their QA chap your EN certs for the material and everything will be fine.

However if you are just selling on a product made by someone else and it needs to be traceable then you have no moral alternative but to supply copies of your supplier's certs. You could try "redacting" their name from the copy but ultimately the customer would be entitled to know where it came from.

[Glade]

HEAVY EDIT! I wrote some guff about who the manufacturer is... but I just checked the standard and the definition of manufacturer is "organization that manufactures the respective products according to the requirements of the order and to the properties specified in the referenced product specification."

So I agree with the post above that you need to pass the D of C from the manufacturer.

I think generally our factories don't object to providing mill certs because the value isn't in the sourcing of material it is in our design, the machining of the components and their assembly so they can't go straight to the source.

Edited by Glade on Monday 10th February 19:33

[Leylandeye]

Thank you.

I am doing nothing to the material other than putting my label on it and trace number so I can trace it back to the soecific item my supplier has supplied me.

The problem is that my customer is very likely to go to my source as if I start sending certs with their company name on it.

There is also talk of them eventually needing a 3.1 for future orders.

[Glade]

Is it something exotic? Unfortunately if you are just a distributor, I don’t see how you can get around them finding another supplier and being subject to market forces?

Type 3.1 requires test results. E.g. material composition, tensile strength, hardness... whatever is in the referenced material spec.

I just logged in to view the standard, clause 6 which I didn’t look at earlier states that an intermediary may only pass on original inspection documents (or copies if you have traceability and can retrieve the original on request) made by the manufacturer without alteration. (Apart from quantity)

Definition of intermediary is: organisation supplied with products by manufacturers, which in turn supplies them with no further processing or after processing which does not change the properties specified in the PO and referenced standard.

[55palfers]

If it's really as simple as you say.....

I reckon you only need to make sure you have an in-house system for tying supplier batch number to your purchase order and a segregated storage system to ensure batches don't get mixed up. Write a simple procedure to detail all the steps and checks and responsibilities.

Then just steal a pro-forma Certificate of Conformity off the internet, make it your own and make sure you quote a "batch number " that can be traced to your original PO and stores holdings. Keep this wording simple and unequivocal. Double check everything you send.

In moments of tedium, browse ISO 9000 or whatever it's called now.

Edited by 55palfers on Tuesday 11th February 16:32

[lake1990]

I work in a QM role in Aerospace and for what it's worth, my take on it is that they want a C of C for the material? As the reply above says, you don't need to give the information of where you purchased the material. Just ensure that it is completely traceable and give it your own serial number. Release it on your own C of C and job done. Then if anyone needs to query that material further down the line you can pull up the original manufactures information (so long as you retain these records). Hope that doesn't come across as teaching you to suck eggs.

[lake1990]

By the way if you think getting ISO9001 would be of benefit (it can, especially in a supply/manufacture business case) then feel free to message me. I've designed and implemented ISO management systems for numerous businesses over the years as a freelancer and have great connections at the leading certification bodies..

[Leylandeye]

Thank you all so much for clearing this grey area and yes Lake, I'll be in touch.