TL 9000 Measurements R4.5: Treatment of FRT-Fixed Response Time
This week, we are addressing the changes to FRT in Release 4.5 of the TL 9000 Measurements Handbook. As you may know, the TL 9000 Measurement FRT is a common measurement reported by all certifying organizations. FRT stands for Fix Response Time. The idea behind FRT is to measure the organization’s overall responsiveness to customer reported problems. These are problems reported by your direct customer. FRT is a measurement of the interval between the time an organization receives a customer problem report and the time a fix is delivered and accepted by the customer. This measure allows organizations to benchmark their responsiveness to customer problems and to improve their fix delivery performance against industry standards.
For companies in categories 1-6, the thresholds for fix intervals are 30 days for major problem reports and 180 days for minor problem reports. For organizations in categories 7 and 8, fix response time intervals can be negotiated through service level agreements with your customer and become what you and your customer agree they should be. In the absence of service level agreements to define fix intervals you can document and perform to your own intervals.
Since categories 7 and 8 only report one problem report measure, you can have a single FRT interval instead of intervals for major and minor problem reports. This is only true if none of your customers prevent you from doing it by specifying fix response time intervals through contractual agreements.
Note that these intervals have changed in release 4.5 of the Measurements Handbook for Product Category 9, End Customer Services. The new intervals have been provided by consensus of the membership to be more realistic for this type of service and will be 2 working days for major problem reports and 5 working days for minor problem reports, beginning with R4.5 of the Measurements Handbook.
Also note that there is no fix response time interval for critical problem reports because QuEST Forum member companies assume that by definition, critical problems are worked on until they are resolved. We hope this post helped clarify aspects of Fixed Response Time. If you require further information or upgrade support, contact bclancy@bizphyx.com. Tune in next week, as we discuss DSR (Data Submission Report) Advisories.
Leticia Hernandez is discussing.
Leticia Hernandez 8:25 am on August 23, 2010 Permalink
I actually have a question about 7.3.1.C.6 Estimation but didn’t know how to begin a new topic. Can you provide an explanation of this new clause? What type of document/record could we show as evidence that it’s being met?