Certificate of Compliance vs. Conformance - What is the difference?

Wes Bucey said:

It's easy enough to antagonize someone by accident. Why go out of your way to antagonize a customer by making him look foolish? My advice stands. Consider that if you change the format of ALL your CofC documents, you MAY tick off another customer, but the main problem is simply not knowing if anyone will call or have some problem with the new document. Sometimes, just sometimes, this "requirement" may change when the person who gave you this set of rules changes jobs.

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Note that I said that I might broach the issue in a way that would not be antagonizing to the customer. If a supplier can make a respectful effort to help a customer identify waste it should be done, unless the customer has made it clear (and some do) that he's not interested in supplier suggestions for improvement. I've spent considerable time on both sides of the customer-supplier fence, and as an OEM QE at present I encourage suppliers to tell me when they think something is wrong or unreasonable, and I never hit them over the head for doing it. Whether I would actually do what I suggested would depend on a lot of factors that can't be known in a purely hypothetical situation. My point was that there are ways of telling customers they're being unreasonable without being disrespectful about it.

Al Rosen said:

Why not:

CERTIFICATE
of
CONFORMANCE/COMPLIANCE/ANALYSIS
​

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We make a distinction in the chemical business between a Certificate of Analysis and the others. A CofA implies that our lab has tested the material (usually something we made) with the results as reported. If data is on one of the CofCs, it implies we copied over the data from somebody else's CofA - these are only for repackaging operations, since we rarely send out manufacturing samples for outside analysis.

Not exactly

cncmarine said:

They mean the same thing. They both mean that the part complies or conforms to specifications.

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While this certainly may be splitting hairs, there is a difference.

Simply stated, Parts conform, and people comply

A cert of complaince states that you have complied with the requirements

A cert of conformance states that product conforms to requirements.

Actually I think we had this discussion a couple of years ago.

James

Not to split hairs but I can come up with plently on instances where I have seen "product complies to specified requirements"

JRKH said:

While this certainly may be splitting hairs, there is a difference.

Simply stated, Parts conform, and people comply

A cert of complaince states that you have complied with the requirements

A cert of conformance states that product conforms to requirements.

Actually I think we had this discussion a couple of years ago.

James

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Good point, Jim!

JRKH said:

While this certainly may be splitting hairs, there is a difference.

Simply stated, Parts conform, and people comply

A cert of complaince states that you have complied with the requirements

A cert of conformance states that product conforms to requirements.

Actually I think we had this discussion a couple of years ago.

James

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And how is it that it's possible to comply with requirements if the parts don't conform? Anytime we range beyond standard dictionary denotation we had better make our "special" definitions clear. If a customer wants to differentiate between compliance and conformance, that's fine, but it doesn't mean that the distinction extends to the rest of the English-speaking universe.

JSW05 said:

And how is it that it's possible to comply with requirements if the parts don't conform? Anytime we range beyond standard dictionary denotation we had better make our "special" definitions clear. If a customer wants to differentiate between compliance and conformance, that's fine, but it doesn't mean that the distinction extends to the rest of the English-speaking universe.

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That's also a good point. Would you agree it is easier to cater to an individual customer's idiosyncrasy on this immaterial point (which I see as in the same vein as a customer asking us to put duplicate labels on opposite sides of a product case for efficiency in stacking inventory.)

If the issue creates extra effort in an organization, simply explain to the customer what the cost is and let him decide. (In our situation, the customer instantly recognized our added labor cost in adding a second label and willingly paid it to have the efficiency in his own operation.)

cncmarine said:

Not to split hairs but I can come up with plently on instances where I have seen "product complies to specified requirements"

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No doubt. I've seen them too. And I agree that the terms are used more or less interchangably. But my dictionary defines them thus

Comply:
To act in accordance with another's command, request, rule, or wish

Conform:
To correspond in form or character; be similar.

Therefore a person acts or complies, while a product conforms

JSW05 said:

And how is it that it's possible to comply with requirements if the parts don't conform? Anytime we range beyond standard dictionary denotation we had better make our "special" definitions clear. If a customer wants to differentiate between compliance and conformance, that's fine, but it doesn't mean that the distinction extends to the rest of the English-speaking universe.

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It isn't. However, I think that in the case of a Cof Compliance your sertifying your system, while with a Cof conformance you are certifying the product. From a potential litigation point of view compliance would be more defensible for the supplier.

BTW if a customer just asks for a CofC they get compliance.

James

JRKH said:

It isn't. However, I think that in the case of a Cof Compliance your sertifying your system, while with a Cof conformance you are certifying the product. From a potential litigation point of view compliance would be more defensible for the supplier.

BTW if a customer just asks for a CofC they get compliance.

James

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I don't know where your legal opinion is coming from, and I'm not a lawyer, but I can tell you from personal experience in litigation (civil and arbitration, liability and commercial, plaintiff and defendant) that what matters is whether the product in question was made in accordance with documented requirements. If I supply a customer with a document that says the product conforms or complies with requirements and the product demonstrably doesn't, the cert is obviously worthless. On the other hand, if I supply a cert and the product does indeed conform/comply, the cert is useless (except to satisfy a customer's misguided requirements) So a "blanket" cert is either worthless or useless .

Also note that as has been pointed out in this thread, there are industries where certain terminology is narrowly defined and generally understood within the industry. I used to work for a company that was obliged to supply notarized certificates of analysis to some customers. A new employee asked what it meant for the cert to be notarized. My boss, having overheard the question, replied, "It means one person lied and another one swore to it."