In short
Qualification tracking is the work of holding every customer qual — its reliability lots, test program and report — to the customer's sign-off date. It matters commercially because volume, and therefore revenue, starts only after sign-off. Quals usually slip quietly: the MES shows a lot is behind, and the account owner finds out when the shipment misses.
Why does a missed qual cost so much?
Foundries and OSATs are paid on volume, and volume starts only after the customer signs off the qualification. A lost qual is either the customer's product launch slipping, or the customer moving the product to another site. Fixed-bid design-services programs lose their margin the same way: to slips found late.
Why do quals slip without anyone noticing?
A site may run forty customer programs at once, each tracked by someone in its own spreadsheet. The data that shows a lot falling behind is in the MES and on the test floor. The person who has to tell the customer is the account owner, who is looking at neither. So the qual that missed surfaces when the shipment does.
What should be tracked on every qual?
For each customer program:
- The qualification plan and the customer's acceptance criteria.
- Each reliability lot against its schedule.
- Test-program readiness.
- The transfer or ramp checklist.
- The customer's sign-off date, frozen as the baseline.
How do you keep the customer informed?
Tell them first. When a lot falls behind, Tymeline raises the alarm the same day, proposes a recovery plan, and drafts the customer note with the known facts for the account owner to send that afternoon. Each client's program is isolated from every other's: separate scope, separate keys.