QP1160 External Property Control

Policy: Harrington Signal Inc. shall exercise due care in the storage, use, and disposition of customer or external provider supplied property.
Purpose: To define the methods to be used to identify, verify, protect, and safeguard customer or external provider property while it is in Harrington Signal’s control.
Scope: This procedure applies to any items supplied by customers or external providers, including components and materials supplied for inclusion in products, tooling and fixtures used in manufacturing and inspection processes, and intellectual property.
Responsibilities: The Sales Representatives are responsible for notifying Manufacturing and Purchasing of the customer’s intent to supply materials during the quotation and contract review processes and coordinating delivery of customer supplied materials.

Receiving and Stockroom personnel are responsible for identifying items as coming from or belonging to the customer, and maintaining control of customer inventory.

Manufacturing and Test are responsible for managing customer supplied tooling and fixtures.
Definitions: Intellectual property – Creation(s) of property having commercial value, including copyrighted (e.g., literary or artistic), ideational property (e.g., patents, appellations of origin, business methods/processes), or real value (e.g. credit card numbers, bank account, electronic banking).

Procedure:

1.0           Receipt, Inspection, and Stocking of Customer Supplied Items

    1. Components and/or materials provided by the customer for use in the manufacturing of their finished products will be received and inspected in accordance with QP1210 RECEIVING AND INSPECTION.

2.0           Intellectual Property

    1. The Manufacturing Manager shall maintain, safeguard, and coordinate transmission (dissemination) of customer intellectual property (e.g., blueprints, schematics, flow diagrams, narratives). Note that the customer’s or external provider’s intellectual property may be in electronic (digital) or in printed form.
    2. The Manufacturing Manager shall control customer’s or external provider’s proprietary information in accordance with QP1000 DOCUMENTED INFORMATION CONTROL and dispose of such information after its use (e.g., return to customer, destroy) in accordance with customer requirements.

3.0           Unsuitable or Missing Items

    1. In the event a customer’s or external provider’s property is found damaged, deteriorated, or otherwise unsuitable for use during inspection, Receiving shall process that item in accordance with QP1030 CONTROL OF NONCONFORMING OUTPUTS. Purchasing shall report the discovery to the customer or external provider using form QP1160-1 MATERIAL PROBLEM REPORT.
    2. If, for any reason, a shortage or loss of items is discovered after the original Receiving and Inspection report is prepared, the Purchasing Manager shall report the discrepancy to the customer or external provider, using form QP1160-1.
    3. A copy of QP1160-1 shall be placed in the customer’s or external provider’s file. A copy of each QP1160-1 shall also be emailed to the Quality & Manufacturing Managers.

4.0           ONGOING CONTROL

    1. Purchasing and Manufacturing shall manage the ongoing awareness, discovery, and control of customer’s or external provider’s materials, using such methods as:
  • Periodic physical inventories;
  • External property audits (periodically or as needed).
  • Effectiveness Criteria:
  • Customer’s or external provider’s property stored, tracked, and used appropriately.
  • Timely communication of customer’s or external provider’s property loss, damage, or unsuitability.

 

Revision History:

Revision Date Description of Changes Approved By
0.0 07/03/17 Initial Release Jim Theesfeld
1.0 8/17/18 Digitized version Todd Gifford