About
This manufacturer makes adhesives and sealants for automotive and electronics assembly. Its quality and regulatory team is responsible for the compliance and quality documents behind every product that ships.
"One answer from us can stop a customer's production line or turn into an audit finding," says the Quality & Regulatory Manager.
Opportunity
Automotive customers send long questionnaires: restricted substances, VOC content, certificates, test standards, the status of every approval. The information existed, but it was spread across safety data sheets, supplier declarations, certificates with their own expiry dates and regulatory lists that change through the year.
"One questionnaire meant opening dozens of files and checking each one by hand," the manager says. Something else was harder. "The hardest part was knowing what not to say. You have to catch what the records don't support before the answer goes out."
Solution
Item by item, with the source
Questionnaires now go to Lubinpla first. Each one is broken into individual questions, and each question is answered from the team's own records, with the document and its date behind every answer.
“I can see straight away where each answer came from. If the customer asks for the basis, I can show it right then.”
Saying what the records don't show
Where the records don't settle a question, the reply says so plainly and states what needs to be checked. The team's Regulatory Specialist values that most. "It never pretends to know. It points us to exactly what we have to confirm."
Ahead of the customer
Recently an automotive parts customer asked three things about an assembly adhesive: whether it contained any substance of very high concern on the current list, its VOC content, and whether the certificates in the last delivery were still valid.
The substance question was answered from the latest supplier declarations, with their dates. The VOC figure came from the data sheet, with the test method. And one certificate was flagged as expiring the following month. The manager confirmed the answers, requested the renewed certificate and sent the reply the same day.
“In the past the customer would have found that first. This time we did.”
Impact
Replies go out complete and consistent, and every answer can be traced to its source. Because the gaps are flagged before anyone signs off, the team no longer worries about claiming more than the records show.
“We review it and send it with confidence. For a quality team, nothing matters more.”