QUALITY CONTROL AND INSPECTION OF PURCHASED MATERIALS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Quality control and inspection of materials is becoming of vital importance in every pharmaceutical industry today become of the hung sum of money involved in the procurement of materials.

It is known that over half of every pharmaceutical company’s budget is on materials. It is therefore necessary that materials which meet the quality required are purchased.

The buyer, as a specialist, must function in one of the more sensitive areas of quality control and  inspection since he represents his organization in the definition, negotiation and implementation of a legal contact- the purchase order.

Quality is a basic concept in modern buying and selling and is taking a high degree of priority in materials requirement.

In many application, the performance specification is very rigid and call for careful quality control and by inspection by both the buying company and the selling company.

Quality control and inspection of materials includes among other things

1.                 The organization and procedure through which a producer measures and control the quality of the product manufactured.

2.                 The on-site checking of the manufacturing process.

3.                 The inspection and acceptance of the party materials and spares.

4.                 The assurance of compliance on the part of the supplier with specified quality levels.

5.                 Co-operating with vendors on quality problems.

6.                 The handing of rejects materials

7.                 The final and accounting aspect of rejection.

Quality control and inspection is the responsibility to some degree of the user department in an organization.

However, the buyer has the basic responsibility of adequately and accountably specifying the quality requirement of materials purchased especially when material concerted are not  too technical in nature.

          In turn, the supplier has the basic responsibility of satisfying the quality requirement in conformance with the mutual agreed price and time schedule.

          The British standard institution defines quality more precisely as:- “The totality of features and characteristics of a product or services that bear on its ability to satisfy a given need”.

          Deniability is an extension of quality it the ability of an item to perform  required function under stated conditions for a stated period of item. Reliability can be expressed as a probability that a product will operate satisfactorily for the stated period of time.