Drawing Package Produced for Customer

[LizardmanDan]

My company just developed a drawing package for a military customer. The original statement of work asked for Level III engineering drawings of an existing system. Basically my company took an existing hardware system that wasn’t well documented and made a drawing package so other manufacturers could produce it.

After spending a large amount of time and resources making the drawing package, the customer was required to review it. We just got the customer's comments back from the review. They said our package was ok but deficient because it did not include data pertaining to Special Inspection Equipment, Special Tooling, Software Documentation, Quality Assurance Provisions, Inspection Test and Evaluation Criteria, and Critical Manufacturing Process Description.

Now since the statement of work only said engineering drawing and referred us to the government document DI-SESS-81000D (this document can be downloaded easily from a google search if anyone is interested) I interpret the DI document as it is up the engineers making the package to determine which should be included on each drawing. The DI document says the drawings will conform to ASME Y14.100 standards and should contain all information necessary for a competent manufacture to make the system. In the end we want our customer to be satisfied with the end product, but we don't want to spend a lot of our time and money doing everything they want.

Has anyone else had a problem where the customer comes back and claims to want something very different than what they originally asked for?
I was wondering what people here think?

 

[MintJulep]

Has anyone else had a problem where the customer comes back and claims to want something very different than what they originally asked for?

No, that never happens anywhere.

If you are sure that you delivered what was required by the scope of work in your contract then your reply should be:

"We would be pleased to provide you with a quote to perform the additional work requested in your comments, as this work is not within our original scope."

 

[LizardmanDan]

Ha, I will take your first sentence as sarcasm, and it is well placed.

I am having a meeting this coming Monday with the customer and my management to try and work out something that we can all agree on. I think our opening line will be similar to what you quoted.

 

[MadMango]

Is "Level III" still used for defining a TDP (technical data package)? Level III means your customer can give the TDP to any manufacturer and they can make what is defined, without needing any other bits of information.

...did not include data pertaining to Special Inspection Equipment, Special Tooling, Software Documentation, Quality Assurance Provisions, Inspection Test and Evaluation Criteria, and Critical Manufacturing Process Description.

From my DOD experiences, you need to address these, even if it is Special Tooling: N/A.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of these Forums?

 

[LizardmanDan]

The way I see it (and the other engineers in my office) is like this:

Special Inspection Equipment: None
Special Tooling:None
Software Documentation: Already referenced in applicable drawings (we do not have the source code to provide)
Quality Assurance Provisions: This is up to the manufacturer of the system based on the drawing package
Inspection Test and Evaluation Criteria: This is how your interpret the dimensions and specs on the actual drawings
Critical Manufacturing Process Description: None

Any item that is none (N/A) how would we address it? You can't prove a negative.

 

[MadMango]

You are right, N/A above should have been None.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of these Forums?

 

[ctopher]

I have never had a customer on a military program ask for something different than what was written in the spec. They are clear about what is required. If they wanted changes, they need to request in writing and update the spec.
It is easy for suppliers to misinterpret military specs, or SOW.

Chris
SolidWorks 10 SP4.0
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[LizardmanDan]

Is "Level III" still used for defining a TDP (technical data package)? Level III means your customer can give the TDP to any manufacturer and they can make what is defined, without needing any other bits of information.

I forgot to answer this question earlier.

Yes, Level III is in reference to a production ready TDP. The drawings that we made are one elmemnt of a TDP. It is actually defined as a TDP element in MIL-STD-31000 (which also defines Level I, II and III). Some of the other areas the customer deemed us deficient in are defined as seperate TDP elements (e.g. Software documentation).

 

[ptruitt]

Good luck. Will your legal council attend the meeting?

Peter Truitt
Minnesota

 

[KENAT]

I think a good starting point is to address each of their noted deficiencies with your response of 'None' etc. in a formal document.

Just leaving a document or similar out of the deliverables because it isn't needed/relevant may not be enough. You may need to explicitly tell there 'NONE' or 'NOT APPLICABLE' etc.

Then, if they still want more ask them to explicitly define what they want with reference to the contract and documents referenced there in. From there you can better determine what you think is and isnt' addressed by the original contract.

Eventually you may need to involve legal council but unless it's really big $ I'd try to resolve it first, not just to save money but for the sake of customer relationship.

Be VERY careful saying something like "Inspection Test and Evaluation Criteria: This is how your interpret the dimensions and specs on the actual drawings" for a true level 3 drawing pack there probably shouldn't be more than one potential interpretation of the drawing.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

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

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

 

[LizardmanDan]

ptruitt,

Not at this point.

KENAT,

The reason we did not deliver any documents that said none is because they originally only asked for product drawings/models and assoc. lists. If they asked for these other data items we would have responded.

I just had the meeting with the customer engineers. Basically they don't care what the original SOW had in it. They want a complete data package. So my team will deliver it. My company internally is still dicussing how much more time and money this will cost but at this point the extra level of effort does not seem to be an issue. My team will do what the customer wants, but of course they are going to pay for it.

What I am going to do from this point on is give the customer a draft of each document so that we can agree on a baseline to work to. That way any quality provisions, special items needed, etc. will be agreed upon via email.

Thanks for everyone's feedback.

 

[fcsuper]

Nothing with external customers, but I've run into this with internal customers (other departments within the company).

Matt Lorono, CSWP
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources & SolidWorks Legion
Follow me on Twitter

 

[drawoh]

...data pertaining to Special Inspection Equipment, Special Tooling, Software Documentation, Quality Assurance Provisions, Inspection Test and Evaluation Criteria, and Critical Manufacturing Process Description.

I would have thought that fabrication drawings prepared to ASME Y14.5 would make the requirements of Level_III documentation. If you specify datums correctly, you have told the fabricators and inspector how to fixture the parts. The fabricators and inspectors should be able to figure out the rest.

JHG