Coman Problems with Brands Not Giving Documentation

Hello,

I work at a coman ice cream factory where we only run brands not owned by us. I have been having a terrible time getting COAs in for their raw ingredients being shipped to us as well as the brand owner not keeping up with vendor documentation.

For example, today I received an incoming truck with raw ingredients from a completely new vendor that has not been approved by us and no COAs for the new raw material.

I have a few questions:

1. As a QA manager, am I supposed to be hounding the brand owner for documentation for SQF or is documentation like this not needed since we are a coman.

2. If we need the documentation what is the best way to go about making the brand owners be on top of their stuff since we are not involved in any of the purchasing steps.

Any help is appreciated, I'm very frustrated having to hound these brand owners for documentation and being stiffed all the time. Thank you!

Man, I'm having nightmares to my first 3PL job at a spice/vegetable tolling plant, SQF certified.  We exempted ourselves from supplier approvals by showing we didn't own or purchase the products, nor select the suppliers, relying on customer contracts that they approved the suppliers and sent COA's with the loads.  Felt like we were hiding behind the fact we don't own product on a lot of our programs, but in reality, it affected how we handled so many of the clauses.  To your questions:

1.  What does your internal program state?  If you've written programs that state you must have documentation and that you have to have approved the supplier, then you likely violated your own receiving program by accepting product from a non-approved supplier.  You shouldn't have to pressure your clients to provide the required documentation, but truth be told a lot of the customers we dealt with were terrible at this and had a "just process my stuff" type attitude.  I bet your customer would change their tune really quick if you started kicking their undocumented loads at the dock instead of receiving them and begging for documentation...

2.  Kind of tying into my first answer, I know it's not practical from a business standpoint to be a rigidly hard ass QA person and cause fights between your Ops and client.  I would first make sure your internal SOP's allow you to receive and place undocumented materials on hold (so far as they don't violate any other SOP's like allergen handling, etc).  Then I'd tell the client their raw materials are on hold pending documentation that you expect them to provide, and any production delays suffered are at their fault.  Warehousing fees for items held and segregated should be more expensive too, you know, because of risk...

Tell them that you will not risk your facility and other customers by allowing unapproved vendors/products into your facility

You need to get the finance team on board as this needs to be stated clearly in the contract

Don't forget---you have a responsibility to all your customers to follow this procedure

I agree with others, the client needs to get on top of their supplier approval program. They can do the work to approve suppliers, but they need to brief you on these approvals and shipments need to come with a CoA. It's not a valid dodge for them to say it's "not your product", you still own a significant part of the risk because it's coming into your facility. And they should have an interested in this program as well, given that you process ingredients from other clients as well. I doubt that they'd feel comfortable with your other companies doing the same thing, sending random unapproved ingredients to your facility which share space with their own product!

Customers that provide the raw material should be subject to the same requirements as you have for approving suppliers.

This must be stated in your Sales and Finance/accounting agreements/contracts to manufacture your customers products that customers must PASS the same criteria as you have for all  Approved Supplier. - because that is in fact what they must complete prior to your company producing product for them.

As long as its all spelled out and communicated on the front end and you are firm that the wall is up until they comply with all requirements prior to production you will find no more headaches in this area because you are not just protecting your company, you are protecting your customers - a good customer will have great respect for your company- because your qualification requirements protect their business and in turn their customers.