The tolerance that cannot be held, and the reply that never came
The drawing calls up a bore at a tolerance that is tighter than the position of the holes around it makes sense for. The thread callout does not say whether it is before or after anodising. There is no general tolerance block at all. The engineer emails the customer's buyer with three questions.
The buyer forwards it to their design team. Two weeks later there is no answer. The job is due. The setter makes a sensible assumption and runs it. The answer arrives the day after dispatch, and it is not the assumption.
Why queries go missing
A drawing query is a small piece of correspondence with large consequences, and it is handled like any other email. The question lives in one person's sent items, the answer, if it comes, arrives to whoever the customer replies to, and the job pack never sees it.
- Queries are raised by email or phone without a reference.
- Nobody tracks which queries are still open.
- Answers are not attached to the job or the drawing.
- The same question is asked again on the next repeat order.
- Jobs are released before queries are answered.
The cost of an unanswered query
Parts made to an assumption that turns out to be wrong, and scrapped or reworked. Jobs held waiting, pushing deliveries late with no record of why. Arguments later about who agreed to what, with only a phone call to go on. And repeat orders that go through the same confusion because last time's answer was never kept.
The query log we build
- A query is raised against the job, part number and drawing revision, with a clear question, a marked up snip of the drawing and your proposed answer if you have one.
- It is sent to the customer from the log with a reference number, so replies come back to the log and not to a personal inbox.
- The job is marked as held on that query, or allowed to proceed only up to a named operation.
- Open queries are chased automatically at intervals you set, and escalated to the account contact if they stay open near the due date.
- When the answer arrives, it is attached to the job and the drawing record, and the hold is released by a named person.
- On repeat orders and new revisions, previous queries and answers for that part are shown, so they are not asked again or forgotten.
| Stage | What the log records |
|---|---|
| Raised | Question, drawing snip, proposed answer |
| Sent | Reference, recipient and date |
| Waiting | Job hold and chase history |
| Answered | Customer's reply and who accepted it |
| Repeat order | Previous queries shown on the part |
What changes for engineering and planning
Every open query is on one list with the jobs it holds up, so the planner can see why a job is waiting and push the customer. Answers are in the job pack when the setter needs them, not in an email the setter never saw. If a customer later disputes what was agreed, the question and the written answer are on record.
And the next time the same part comes in, the previous answers are there, which often means the drawing issue can be raised with the customer for a proper revision.
Is this happening with your drawing queries?
- Queries are sent from personal inboxes.
- Parts have been made to assumptions that turned out wrong.
- Jobs wait on answers nobody is chasing.
- The same question gets asked on every repeat order.
- There is no written record of what the customer agreed.