Fit the method to the complaint, not to the form. The complaint log's Substantiated and Escape columns, and the questions in the flowchart, decide how much investigation a complaint needs.
| Kind of complaint | Method | Tools |
|---|---|---|
| Product escape, a safety or key characteristic, a repeat, or the customer asks for an 8D | Full escape investigation with a team; 8D | B12, B03, B08 |
| Product nonconformance found and contained, one-off, clear cause | Careful 5 Whys on both the cause and the escape | B06, B12 Parts E and F |
| Documentation or identification (certificate, label, mixed lot) | Walk the shipping desk's process; 5 Whys on the step that failed | B06, B12 |
| Delivery | Trace the order: promise date, schedule, supplier lead time, capacity | Your planning records; B06 |
| Packaging or handling | Packing instruction, carrier, the packaging as received | B06 |
| Service or communication | What was promised, by whom, and what happened | B06 |
Every investigation of a product escape ends with two causes. The root cause explains why the part was made wrong. The escape cause explains why every check it passed did not find it. Walk the route the part took from the operation that made the defect to the dock, list every check it passed, and ask of each one: could it have detected this defect at all, and did it run as planned?
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A management aid, not certification or a registrar audit. Using it does not by itself show conformity to AS9100D or any other standard, and your customers' requirements may add to it.
Clause numbers refer to AS9100D (SAE AS9100 Rev D) unless another document is named. The standards' text is not reproduced here: use your own licensed copy.
Aegis Insights are our own guidance, labeled wherever they appear: how we approach this work, not a requirement of any standard or customer.