Rob Kantner answers your questions:
Customer Confidentiality (10/26/07)
How formal does the training have to be pertaining to Customer Confidentiality in the 2000 standard? -- R. Scott
This is not a huge element in the Standard. I do not believe that formal training in this topic would be expected. Mainly, people with access to customer confidential information need to know to keep it confidential; this aspect would fall under the Customer Owned Property requirement. I would not think it necessary to generate a big formal training process for this.
Customer Owned Containers
Our customer has purchased half of the shipping containers with our company. With this 50/50 relationship - how should we consider the containers? Our customer contributed 50% of the purchase price for the shipping containers. Weare responsible for the maintenance responsibilities for the containers, but bill half the repair and upkeep costs to the customer on a quarterly basis. I hope you can help us navigate through our responsibilities with regards to this element.
In my view it is really not important that you and the customer share ownership 50/50 on a cost basis. You have agreed by contract with the customer to maintain the containers; the cost / expense issue is secondary. Therefore, to comply with the Standard, you must identify the containers as being customer-owned (in your inventory system and also by marking them as such if they could be visually confused with company-owned ones). You have to protect and maintain them (which you are doing by contract anyway). And if any are damaged, destroyed, lost, etc., you have to report that to the customer. Which you would no doubt do anyway. Just write a simple procedure spelling out how these things are done and who is responsible for doing them. You can do this in 2 pages or less.
Are Molds and Tools "Customer Property"?
In the section Customer Property, if a mold and tools are supplied by the customer for us to make product to sell back to them. Are the molds and tools classified as customer property? I am confused in this respect of that section. Thanks
Yes, they are.
What Kind of Customer Property Do You Normally Find in an Automotive Industry Plant?
Can anyone provide me with an example in the Automotive industry of a type of product a customer might give to their supplier to use in the production of their (customer) specified product?
In the ISO 16949 / QS-9000 implementation projects I've managed I've found such product to be customer-owned: a) packaging; b) containers; c) components, subassemblies, etc.; d) tooling; e) gages. Hope this helps.
