ABSTRACT
Customer supplied products could be just about anything that an organization may need in supporting the contracted product’s realization processes. The presumption that whatever the customer may provide in supporting product realization is already a qualified product, because the customer checked it before releasing it, is as far from the truth as catching a 10 pound bass on dry land. Of course, not every customer falls under this scenario. The customer’s previously demonstrated capability should be the yardstick by which we should take any chances in accepting the supplied product(s). Without controlling customer-supplied products, we are inviting the same type of problems as accepting unverified products from subcontractors. Just when we are going through the first production piece verification, we discover the problems. This is another area where any profit we wanted to make on the job had evaporated. Sometimes I wonder where customer satisfaction begins, now that I am buying product support from the customer. Anyway, QOP 004 is giving you the tools in order to control customer supplied products, similarly as you would buy products from anybody else. It’s a fair deal.
