Kick Off meeting:
Normally 4 weeks after placement of order or 2 weeks after submitting the critical documents, a kick off meeting is held.
It is advisable to hold the KOM after one cycle of critical document turnaround in order to have a more effective and meaningful meeting. . This is to allow supplier to incorporate the comments made by the client.
It is always a good practice to turn around the meeting agenda so all relevant parties are on the same page.
The package engineer chairs the KOM meeting while buyer, quality engineer, document controller and discipline engineers such as electrical, process, material, welding (as needed) would support the package engineer.
Kick off meeting is normally held at the client’s premises.
KOM is intended to finalize the following:
- Vendor Document Requirement List (VDRL); list of documents that vendor to submit for approval, review or for information
- Assign a submittal date against each document that is called Vendor Document Requirement Schedule (VDRS). Normally, these dates are not exactly fixed but tentative , for example T – 2 which means that particular document should be submitted 2 weeks before Test.
- Data sheet finalized with package engineer filling in the design input and output and any special note such as inspection requirement while the supplier filling in the rest.
- Design calculation approved or atleast design methodology, design input, design out, design verification and design validation methods are agreed upon.
- Engineering drawing finalized or atleast draft drawing is reviewed with a target completion date for submittal and approval before commencement of fabrication.
Buyer in conjunction with the package engineer shall review the proposed fabrication plan and whether it is synchronized with the VDRS, that is, document submittal schedule is coordinated the fabrication phases.
Buyer/Expeditor normally has the responsibility of monitoring both the fabrication process as well as the timely submission of documents.
For example, buyer shall chase up any outstanding documents over due from supplier as flagged off by document controller as well as any outstanding document overdue for approval. Such expediting would help debottleneck any potential delay and guarantees on time delivery of the equipment.
It is a good practice to invite quality engineers from supplier end as well as the client’s end at this point to discuss the major quality documents (quality plan, ITP) in preparation for Pre-Production Meeting (PPM), also called Pre Inspection Meeting (PIM).
It is also advisable that document controllers from both parties attend the KOM meeting to bottom out any possible misunderstanding about document numbering, method of document submission, incorporating comments and revising up, turnaround time, weekly reporting of document status; flagging off outstanding documents, etc.
Any outstanding issues remaining from the KOM meeting shall be transferred to the supplier weekly meeting agenda for an orderly and timely closure. The weekly supplier meeting is normally held via telecom.
