Quality System: Review of Requirements for Products and Services

For a customer-focused organization, it is essential, before offering certain products and services, to verify whether or not it has the ability to honor the obligations that it is about to assume and to ensure that the products and services offered meet customer needs.

The reputation of an organization, in fact, would inevitably be compromised if it agreed to provide products and services with the certainty of not being able to adhere to the required specifications. It is therefore prudent to investigate all customer needs in advance to make sure that they can be met.

There are ten requirements related to this topic:

• Ensure the ability to meet the defined requirements (8.2.3.1)
• Review of customer-specified requirements before committing to supply (8.2.3.1a)
• Review of requirements necessary for intended use (8.2.3.1b)
• Review of requirements specified by the organization (8.2.3.1c)
• Review of legal and mandatory requirements (8.2.3.1d)
• Review and resolution of requirements other than those previously expressed (8.2.3.1e)
• Management of undocumented customer requirements (8.2.3.1)
• Retention of review result (8.2.3.2)
• Management of changes in requirements for products and services (8.2.4)
• Ensure the ability to meet the defined requirements (8.2.3.1)

The period preceding the submission of an offer or the acceptance of a contract or order is a time that should be dedicated to the in-depth study of the customer's requirements to ensure that they are able to fulfill them. The organization, in essence, must be certain that it can honor the obligations it intends to enter into with its customers before making a commitment to them.

The question to ask at this stage will be: do we have the ability to make this product in the required quantity and deliver it to the established destination within the agreed time and at the decided price?

The purpose of the requirements review is to ensure that they are complete, unambiguous, and achievable by the organization. When the customer places an order or signs a contract, there is a commitment from both parties: the customer agrees to pay the agreed amount in exchange for certain products or services, and the supplier to deliver them according to the agreements. To adequately address the requirement, the sales process must include a moment dedicated to the review of the salient points, which must be carried out before the presentation of the offer or the acceptance of the order.

The personnel in charge of drafting the offer or accepting the order must:

• demonstrate that they have understood the requirements;
• have access to information relating to the organization's capabilities;
• be competent to determine whether or not the organization can meet the customer's requirements.

Naturally, this process is also necessary for all possible changes to the contract or order, so that the organization can review what it is able to do, in light of any changes.

To ensure that the organization can meet the requirements relating to products and services, a thorough assessment of business risks must be made by answering the following questions:

• Will new technical capabilities be required?
• If so, which ones?
• Will we be able to develop the additional capabilities within the time frames budgeted?
• Can we make this product in the required quantity or provide this service to the estimated number of users, within the required time frames?
• In view of the times and quantities required, can we make this product or provide this service at a price that will offer an acceptable profit?
• Are we currently able to accommodate an order of this magnitude?
• Do we have the necessary resources and, if not, can we obtain them in time to accept the order?

Attention because, in this case, we must also take into account, for example, the specialized skills or technologies that we do not possess. If additional resources were needed and we were able to obtain them, can we ensure that they reach the level of competence / capacity required within the expected time frame? Where applicable, do we (or our partners) have the ability to transport this product to the required destination and protect it for the entire duration of the journey? Where applicable, do we (or our partners) have the ability to distribute this service where required?

Once these questions have been asked and all the answers have been found, the sales staff should be in possession of reliable data regarding the organization's ability to produce or deliver what is required by the potential customer and should be in a position not to seek an agreement at all costs but to rationally assess its convenience and feasibility.

But how do you demonstrate that the organization has reviewed the customer's requirements and assessed its ability to meet them before committing to providing products or services to a customer? The steps to follow, in this case, are the following: present evidence of the existence of a process for reviewing requirements before the presentation of an offer or the acceptance of an order or contract; present evidence of the existence of a process aimed at establishing the organization's ability to adhere to the customer's requirements with the aim of providing this information to the people who will have to decide on the offer, order or contract; select a representative sample of orders and contracts and present evidence that the decisions to offer products or services was based on the recognized ability of the organization to meet the customer's requirements.

Review of requirements before committing to supply (8.2.3.1a)

The requirements specified by the customer relating to the products and services to be supplied are defined in the documented information provided by the customer. Any specific requirements relating to these products and services may be applied to their characteristics but also to the processes by which they must be produced, supplied, or managed and may include:

• the intrinsic characteristics of the product;
• requirements relating to price and delivery;
• procurement requirements that may establish the source of certain components, materials or the precise conditions under which personnel must work;
• management requirements relating to how the project and the product will be managed and the ways in which they will be supplied to the customer;
• post-delivery requirements relating to installation, assistance, repair, and customer support;
• security requirements relating to the protection of information;
• financial agreements relating to payment terms, invoicing, etc.
• commercial requirements such as intellectual property, property rights, those relating to labeling, warranty, copyright, etc.
• the requirements relating to persons authorized to provide a service such as, for example, the issue of a license, etc.
• the provisions relating to personnel such as access to the organization's facilities by the customer's personnel and vice versa.

The information collected as a result of determining the various product requirements should be consolidated in the form of a specification, contract or order and, therefore, subjected to review. The personnel who should review these requirements must be decided based on their complexity and could range from the simple sales clerk, to the senior sales representative up to the management based, for example, on the fact that new products or services must be developed to meet the identified market needs, that a sale is being made against the organization's requirements or that a customized sale is being sought based on the specific requests of the customer.

You can demonstrate that you have reviewed the requirements specified by the customer:

• presenting evidence of the existence of a process aimed at reviewing the customer's requirements;
• presenting evidence that this review also includes delivery and post-delivery activities;
• selecting a representative sample of offers, contracts and orders and presenting evidence that the customer's requirements have been reviewed consistently with the process.

Review of requirements necessary for intended use (8.2.3.1b)

This requirement applies when a customer has specific requirements relating to the products or services it is trying to obtain and may or may not have specified the intended use. The products or services requested by the customer may be those offered by the organization, but may also have been conceived by the customer for an application other than that intended by the organization.

Alternatively, the products or services requested by the customer may not be those that the organization is used to offering and, therefore, it is important to know their intended use in advance. It is important to identify the requirements necessary for the intended use and, unless the conditions of use have been made abundantly clear at the time of purchase, the organization has the obligation to establish the conditions under which the products or services it provides will be used to safeguard itself from any damage to property, people, or the environment that may result from unexpected use.

A useful approach is to maintain a checklist or a technical sheet of the products and services offered that indicates the key characteristics and any limits, that is, what the products cannot be used for. The demonstration that the requirements not declared by the customer, but necessary for the use specified or foreseen by the customer have been examined can be given through:

• the presentation of the proof of the existence of a process in which the customer's requirements are first reviewed and only after that a commitment is made to provide products and services;
• the demonstration that in this process there is a phase in which the intended use of the products or services is established and in which the conditions of use are clarified;
• the selection of a representative sample of records of reviews carried out and how they proceeded;
• presenting the list of complaints, if any, relating to an order and showing that none of them relate to a lack of clarity regarding the intended use of the product.