I want to share with you a significant problem that occurred last week while I was out of the office. The problem involves a fundamental breakdown in this company's quality control system. It involves a problem which was identified by one of my QA inspectors on the Greasex line. The way that a number of people responded to this quality control problem is an indication of potentially more serious problems. Let me start by describing the events:
Certain cans of Greasex were overfilled.
QA tested them, found they were over pressurized and flagged them for rework.
The first line supervisor removed the rework tags.
That supervisor reports that he manually vented gas from each can of Greasex that was red flagged by my inspector. The supervisor did not test these cans after venting to see if they were still over pressure. Instead, he personally packaged them for shipment.
A broader problem is that the design of the Greasex can is untested. As you know, it has a distinctive hour-glass shape which marketing thought up, but there was such a rush to put the design into production that no testing was done to determine if the design was safe or what problems might occur during the production process as a result of this unique design
Still another problem involves the nozzle. I am not sure why, but incoming inspection is allowing the vendor supplying the nozzles to deliver substandard and nonconforming parts. The purchasing department's response is that they plan to speak to the salesperson for the nozzle supplier the next time he is in the office about this problem. The work around is to install the nozzles by applying more torque than should be required.
My biggest concern at this point involves product safety. We have delivered cans of a pressurized product that we know were overfilled. We have Wayne Simmons assurance that each of the cans was vented to reduce the overpressure. However, Wayne did not use any c...