Company Title Block Signatures

[macduff]

Hello All,
We're having a huge problem with one of our customers. Our sustaining lead asked my advice on the following.

"They're are trying to tell us how we control our title block signatures, who (dept's) signs the block, and date formating?"

I told him that our customer cannot do that and it is company drivin standard. He then asked if there's a MIL, ASME, ANSI yada yada yada, that direct us too. I said no as long as the orginal signed and dated drawing matches (one to one) the electronic typed name and date we're all alright. That I believe is in the ASME standard.

We have complete history of all of our revised drawings, and always have tracibility back to the orginal signatures and dates.

Thanks,

Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2009 SP 3.0
Dell 490 XP Pro SP 2
Xeon CPU 3.00 GHz 3.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro FX 3450 512 MB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer

 

[MartinSr00]

If you're making your drawings for production parts obtained by your company, your title blocks are none of your customer's business unless your contract with the customer says otherwise. If their requirements are different from your production drawing requirements, you should make separate drawings for the customers.

Most customers do not want to get into process means and methods. When this happens, it means that they can be held contractually responsible for the results of those means and methods, taking you off the hook.

The customer may have quality requirements, but normally firms may require that you have a quality control plan with quality control procedures that support that plan. That should be specified in the original contract, and if the contract gives them approval rights, you could generate a project-specific quality assurance plan.

For configuration management purposes, the requirement is generally that drawings are approved internally by authorized persons. Your quality control plan/procedures control who those authorized people are. If the customer has quality requirements (for example, that you follow ISO quality standards, etc.) that is something that's handled with your registrar when you establish your quality program.

You cannot allow customers to mess with your internal company processes -- if you set that precedent, you'll lose control of your processes bit by bit.

When you have disagreements like this, return to the customers contract with you and see if you've given them the right to mess with your internal system. If you have, don't repeat the error on future jobs.

When I'm on the receiving side (which I often am), I avoid such things like the plaque, because you give your supplier a giant sized excape contract in the event something goes wrong. Explain this to the customer.

 

[ewh]

I agree with you - that should be a company procedure. Per Frank Watts in the third edition of Engineering Documentation Control Handbook, "Many technical people should be part of a team to review the design documents but no more signatures are required than the author of the document and the acceptor. If you have more than these two people signing... it will unnecessarily delay the process. Thus the more the signatures, the more the problems that can go undetected."
Many companies have more signatures than those two, but the only driving requirement is that the company follow their Quality Procedures. If the customer contractually specified which signatures are required, then you should follow. If it is not contractually specified, you have to follow your own Quality Procedures.

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - [small]Robert Hunter[/small]

 

[ewh]

I should really update the thread before posting; MartinSr00 and I have posted similar responses.
As an aside, this would probably be more appropriate in forum781

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - [small]Robert Hunter[/small]

 

[drawoh]

macduff,

This sounds like part of an ISO9000 sort of discussion. What sort of contractual relationship do you have with this customer?

You need to consider the possibility that the customer is always right.

JHG

 

[ctopher]

Check the customer's spec. If they are military or gov't, they possibly may own the drawings; giving them the right to say how the drawings are done.

Chris
SolidWorks 09, CATIA V5
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[MintJulep]

If the contract supports you then you tell the customer "This is our process. It works. The contract does not allow you to dictate our internal processes."

If the contract supports the customer you do what the customer tells you.

If the contract is ambiguous, you tell the customer "The costs associated with revising our internal processes are outside the scope of the contract and were not included in our bid. We would be happy to execute a change order to accommodate your request."

 

[macduff]

WOW, this is all good stuff folks! I'll make a hardcopy of this and talk with the sustaining lead engineer. I cannot thank you enough for all your feedbaack. I'll be back to let you know the outcome.

You guys rock!

Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2009 SP 3.0
Dell 490 XP Pro SP 2
Xeon CPU 3.00 GHz 3.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro FX 3450 512 MB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer

 

[KENAT]

He who pays the piper picks the tune.

If it's in the contract then do it.

If it's not then say no sorry.

If' it's ambiguous say the cost difference etc.

When bidding jobs in future check these sorts of things in advance and bid accordingly, turn down bids if the hassle is too much.

As Chris says, for govt jobs or similar where the customer effectively owns the drawings at the end of the job, then pretty much they do get to spec all these things.

My previous employer had jobs from various govt agencies, some direct some via tier 1 defense contractors etc. While the basic principles were the same, some contracts did have slightly different requirements on these types of things, so we followed them.

Check out 14.100 & 14.35 just in case they have anything relevant.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[fcsuper]

If you are using CAD, then signatures on drawings serve no purpose unless you actually plot the drawing and have the individuals physically sign the it. Typing someone's name into a field in order to represent approval is not legally supported. You'll need a "Part 11" compliant electronic signature (offered by most PLM/ERP's these days). When electronic signatures are used, the approval is stored in THAT system, not the drawing itself. Again, signatures that are typed in on CAD drawings have no legal value.

Matt Lorono
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
and Mechnical.Engineering Yahoo! Group

 

[macduff]

Matt, what's "Part 11"?

When we have our first release of a drawing, we print/plot it out and have all the applicable depts. sign and date it. Then if there's a revision (ECO) against the drawing we type in the signatures at that point, and remain on the drawing there after. We've been doing this for years and the FAA approves of this because we keep a revision history of our entire doc's. It's now our customer that is challenging us on our process.


Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2009 SP 3.0
Dell 490 XP Pro SP 2
Xeon CPU 3.00 GHz 3.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro FX 3450 512 MB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer

 

[ewh]

That is the method we use with the original signatures. After the initial release, they are more for reference than anything else. We do always have a true approval signature for any revisions located in the revision block.

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - [small]Robert Hunter[/small]

 

[macduff]

ewh,
We type in signature in the revision block because it's signed on the ECO. Total tracibility of signatures back to what's typed in.

Thanks,

Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2009 SP 3.0
Dell 490 XP Pro SP 2
Xeon CPU 3.00 GHz 3.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro FX 3450 512 MB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer

 

[ewh]

Then you should probably do away with the signatures on the drawing and add a statement to the effect that all approval signatures are on file. That is the direction in which we are headed.

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - [small]Robert Hunter[/small]

 

[fcsuper]

ewh, that's the direct we took many years ago. Our approvals are maintained within our PLM. For us, we don't even mention where the approvals are stored because the source for any documents is the PLM itself (so it's all viewable in the history of the item same as the document itself).

Macduff, the fact that there is a typing in of the names for later revisions kind've makes the point made earlier. It is of no value, since the document in its current form was not approved by that individual. This is something that's been lacking in the Engineering field even before the Information Age open up the possibilities of a paperless society. It would be easy enough for an Engineer approver to say "I approved rev A, but did not approve any of the subsequent changes." Each revision needs to be fully approved. There are no half-approvals, especially in these days with all the lawsuits on one side, and all the ISO compliance requirements on the other.

Matt Lorono
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
and Mechnical.Engineering Yahoo! Group

 

[dgallup]

Acrobat 9 allows a checker/approver to attach an electronic signature to an otherwise read only file. We are going to start using that for all forms of document approval. No PDM/PLM around here.

 

[macduff]

Hello,
I might be repeating items, but would like to clarify our process here.

The original drawing is physically sign and released at rev n/c or -. Then signoffs are typed into the title block in our PDM. We have now traceability of the physical signoffs back to the typed in signoffs on the electronic document. When a revision is issued, the ECO is physically signed by all applicable depts, and the draftsperson incorporates the change on the drawing and electronically types his or her name in the revision history block, and released through DC.


Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2009 SP 3.0
Dell 490 XP Pro SP 2
Xeon CPU 3.00 GHz 3.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro FX 3450 512 MB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer

 

[fcsuper]

The individual typing their own name is as a notice as to who made the change is OK as long as that is not treated as an approval (though it is still deniable).

Typing approver's names into approval fields is unnecessary if you are referencing the ECO in the rev block. We don't even have approval fields in our title blocks. Don't need them.

HOWEVER, if you really really want them one there, you can use "s/ name here /s" method that points to the fact that a physical signature exists somewhere. I would still question leaving the original signature from the n/c revision on any subsequent revisions, but I know this is a traditional drafting thing to do.


Matt Lorono
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
and Mechnical.Engineering Yahoo! Group