Why does it occur?
Investigate the design, materials, tooling, process conditions and assembly that can create the failure.
Supplier Quality Improvement
Stop treating the same defect as a new emergency.
Your starting point
For teams facing repeated defects or unstable supplier quality. Build the response around the specific failure, its root cause and verified corrective action.
Key decision: has recurrence risk actually changed?
An action being completed is different from an action being effective. Closure should depend on follow-up evidence, not a supplier assurance or a single replacement sample.
More inspection can contain a defect.
It may not remove its cause.
Why does it escape?
Investigate the controls and measurement that should detect or prevent the nonconformity.
Keep immediate protection, causal evidence, action implementation and follow-up verification distinct. Replacing a batch is not the same as preventing recurrence.
Define and contain the problem
Agree what the failure is, how it is measured and which parts, lots or processes may be affected. Establish temporary containment and decision authority so immediate protection is not confused with a permanent fix.
Reconstruct how it occurs and escapes
Gather defect samples, process settings, revision history and inspection records. Investigate both why the defect is created and why existing controls fail to detect or prevent it. Test proposed causes against observations or controlled checks.
Assign actions that change the process
Choose corrective actions linked to the supported causes. Set an owner, implementation evidence and due date. Changes may involve engineering, tooling, work instructions, process control, measurement or supplier practices.
Verify over a meaningful follow-up
Review later production under agreed conditions and criteria. Decide when containment can be lifted, which controls become permanent and what evidence closes the issue. If the defect recurs, reopen the causal assumptions rather than repeating the same action.
What to bring
- Failure definition, defect samples and affected lots
- Inspection data and production or supplier history
- Previous actions, recurrence dates and current containment
Outputs to define together
- Problem definition and containment record
- Cause analysis with evidence and open hypotheses
- Corrective-action plan with named responsibilities
- Effectiveness review and closure criteria
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What do you have? What needs to happen next?
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