Vendor Quality Control Manual

This article provides information about the vendor's quality control manual. This content is general and covers all material and equipment vendors.

Quality Control Manual

This manual covers all productions of vendors; vendors need to define a specific quality control plan for each order. In other words, the QC manual is company oriented and the quality control plan is project or order oriented.

The well-defined quality control manual must covers following items:

Authority and Responsibility:

Persons performing the quality control functions must have well-defined responsibility and authority.

Organization:

The establishment of an organization chart is necessary, and the relationship between different departments such as management, purchasing, engineering, construction, quality control, etc. must be determined. This chart will identify each group function and its related responsibility to the quality control.

Design Calculation and Drawing:

The quality control system of a manufacturer must establish some procedures to ensure the latest drawing and design calculation and specification, which are required by the codes and standards and are used for manufacturing and examination processes.

Quality Control Manual - Material Control:

The quality control system of the manufacturer must establish a process to ensure that material receiving control, identification and proper storage are done and is based on the codes and standards requirement.

Examination and Inspection Program:

Purchasers normally provide an inspection and test plan and identify in which production stages an inspector will attend for witnessing a specific test or inspection.

The manufacturer's quality control department must provide a project quality control plan based on the received inspection and test plan and notify the purchaser's inspector in due time for witnessing the tests and inspections.

If the production of the manufacturer is not based on order and production and is supplied directly to the market, then the quality control plan must be well-defined and all tests and examinations have to be determined and implemented properly.

Quality Control Manual - Correction of Non-Conformities:

The manufacturer's quality control system must identify a process for corrective action for all non-conformities found by the purchaser's inspector or manufacturer's own quality control personnel.

Quality Control Manual - Manufacturing:

The manufacturer quality control system must provide a process that ensures all manufacturing activities such as welding, machining, etc. are done based on the codes and standards requirement.

Codes and standards Required Examination and Tests:

It is necessary that manufacturers prepare and submit a Quality Control Plan for each project or order and that they identifies all required inspections and tests which are have to be done to codes and standards.

The manufacture quality control system needs to generate some procedures for proper execution of all required examinations and tests, such as non-destructive testing, hydrostatic testing, performance test or run-out test.

Calibration of Measuring Tools:

The manufacturer quality control system needs to provide a system to properly calibrate measuring, inspection, testing and examination equipment.

Record Retention:

The manufacturer quality control system requires defining a system to maintaining and retaining the quality control records.

Sample quality control Forms

The sample Quality Control Forms used in the quality control system and detail procedures for use of them need to be included in the quality control system.

The quality control manual dose not have to be provided to the purchasers or clients, as it might be a confidential document, but the quality control plan must be available to purchasers to show them all routine tests and examinations in the production process.

To realize the task of the industrial quality control system per each equipment type, review following articles:

There are draft inspection and test plans in each page, and you can download the draft sheet and study the industrial quality control task for each equipment type.

The first column shows the responsibility of the manufacturer's quality control.