Customer satisfaction is generally determined by the suppliers performance in three measurable activities; Quality, Cost and Delivery.

Concern management is a process geared towards improving a company's focus and performance in two of these areas; Quality and Delivery.

Concern management is a structured approach to dealing with internally and externally raised concerns or problems. By using the 8D approach to problem resolution, the system provides responses, and results, in a format which is accepted as an industry standard.

Concerns handled in this manner will be resolved quickly and completely, with the supporting evidence to show complete closure. All of which generates customer confidence that problems are not recurring and the supplier has improved the controls for its processes.

This is an important factor in any company's survival, because with no customers there is no company.

Concern management is a process which receives problems or concerns, allocates them to the area defined as responsible, and provides a method of tracking through the problem solving stages to resolution.

Concern management does not solve problems, but provides a mechanism to ensure that problems are solved.

The basic steps are as follows;

1. A complaint or problem is raised, either by a customer or an internal source. Whoever receives the complaint records the necessary details on the appropriate form and instigates any customer support activities which may be necessary. The form is then passed to the member of staff responsible for dealing with concern issues (the Concern Controller).
2. The Concern Summary Sheet is raised by the Concern Controller and issued to the supervisor, or his nominee, of the area identified as generating the concern.
   A response to the containment actions required is expected to be made available within 24 hours, with the relevant evidence. Root cause definition is required within 5 days of issue of the CSS.
3. To maintain the level of focus necessary for swift concern resolution, and provide activity tracking, it is recommended that the Concern Controller conducts a daily meeting, of no more than 10 minutes duration, with the owners of the concerns.
4. Following identification of root cause, and implementation of corrective actions, the CSS is placed into a monitoring situation for 100 working days. If there is no recurrence of the concern during this period, the CSS is closed out. A closed CSS then becomes a ' book of knowledge' for that particular concern.

The process outlined above should be generic enough to be used in any organisation. The details of the process, and the forms used may differ between organisations. In this course, we will provide examples based on the paperwork used in the GKN concern management process.