Hi Magenta,
I don't know if it's too late
Well, I had a saga with our dairy supplier.
Upper management pressured Purchasing to get COAs.
Purchasing pressured our dairy supplier.
Our dairy supplier came up with COAs, which had parameters like
"ATP = Negative" (For finished product DAIRY. On the COA).
They came back with "spec sheets" that were blank specs, with all parameters "N/A".
They figured I would see the file names and never click on them I guess?
So I rejected it. This went one for some time, causing a lot of strife and tension in the factory. Employees felt bad about using it, purchasing thought I was an unpleasable (Ed note: that's a cromulent word) jerk, I felt bad that there was no butter, and our accountants felt bad that I was threatening to hold one of our big ingredients.
Then, news of them storing milk for the sick & young in outdoor, uncontrolled storage sheds for YEARS broke again, and my upper management read it. I explained that this was the same location that delivered our milk, and showed him the outrageous documents they had been giving me.
Our upper management set up several meetings with our supplier, one manager up the chain at a time, until he could find someone at the company who understood what a COA was and why it's not acceptable to keep sending me the bullshit ones. It took him 3 meetings, but he got to the district manager, who was finally keyed into the conversation. My upper management cares about the plant's food safety and is wiling to dedicate time to it (money is another story).
The next delivery, I got a REAL COA, with REAL parameters, and they've been coming ever since. I don't know what happened. Maybe the supplier got a new QA Manager. Maybe my complaining made a difference to the huge company and they changed (ha!). Maybe they're doctoring "better looking" COAs now. I sent a sample of each product to 3rd party lab for annual COA analysis and it came correct like 50 Cent. So we aren't dying for a new supplier yet. But my ears are open.
Edited by magenta_majors, 16 September 2014 - 02:40 PM.