Hi,

Firstly can I say I only found this forum a few weeks ago and already from reading other posts I have found it invaluable - so thanks to all of you!

The reason I am posting was more a curiosity than anything else. I work for a company of approx 30 employees and we are accredited to ISO 9001:2000 since early 2003. We initially entered the "weird and wonderful" world of quality due to demands from our customers (mainly pharma companies) about 3-4 years ago and worked towards accreditation. Now we currently carry out about 2 internal audits a year with approx 4 customer audits and 1 ISO surveillance audit each year also. I myself come from a marketing background and had no prior experience in quality prior to 2002 when I joined this company and gradually got more and more involved in tthe quality side of things and now am the quality co-ordinator for the company and have had internal auditor training.

And that long winded explanation leads me to my question...am I the only "part-time" quality person on the forum and is it unusual for the size of our company to only have a part time quality representative? In theory I am supposed to spend 20% of my time on quality but inevitably works out at more than that - much to the annoyance of my superiors!

Thanks again for listening - no doubt this will be the first of many posts now I have found so many like-minded people all in one place! What a relief to know I am not the only one who thinks like me! Currently awaiting a draft report from our customers on an audit carried out last week on our company - so maybe back sooner rather than later with help on my observations/non-conformances!

Mary

Hi,

Firstly can I say I only found this forum a few weeks ago and already from reading other posts I have found it invaluable - so thanks to all of you!

The reason I am posting was more a curiosity than anything else. I work for a company of approx 30 employees and we are accredited to ISO 9001:2000 since early 2003. We initially entered the "weird and wonderful" world of quality due to demands from our customers (mainly pharma companies) about 3-4 years ago and worked towards accreditation. Now we currently carry out about 2 internal audits a year with approx 4 customer audits and 1 ISO surveillance audit each year also. I myself come from a marketing background and had no prior experience in quality prior to 2002 when I joined this company and gradually got more and more involved in tthe quality side of things and now am the quality co-ordinator for the company and have had internal auditor training.

And that long winded explanation leads me to my question...am I the only "part-time" quality person on the forum and is it unusual for the size of our company to only have a part time quality representative? In theory I am supposed to spend 20% of my time on quality but inevitably works out at more than that - much to the annoyance of my superiors!

Thanks again for listening - no doubt this will be the first of many posts now I have found so many like-minded people all in one place! What a relief to know I am not the only one who thinks like me! Currently awaiting a draft report from our customers on an audit carried out last week on our company - so maybe back sooner rather than later with help on my observations/non-conformances!

Mary
Welcome to the Cove!:bigwave: .

I'm sure you're not alone. One of the things owners of small business hate most is overhead, mainly because the relationship between overhead and profit is much more conspicuous in a small company. It's not unusual for several people in those companies to wear more than one hat. Usually it becomes clear over time that hiring more people is the only alternative as the business grows. Unfortunately, sometimes overloaded people have to leave before ownership gets the message, but it's all a normal part of growing pains.

Hello, Mary, and welcome to the Cove. :bigwave:

P/T Quality....you're going to find a few of us who feel that Quality is everyone's job....on a full-time basis and whether they know it or not. :) However, focusing on the Quality Coordinator side of things, being a small company, it makes sense that many of the staff wear many hats. The allocation of your time, however, is dependent upon the company and the system and the culture.

You could always tell your superiors (in a nice tone, naturally) that if people would just adhere to the system, you wouldn't need to spend so much time "babysitting" it. :)

Management Commitment aka Leadership is one of the main cornerstones to a solid and effective and efficient Management System. If they do not push and follow the system themselves, how can they expect others to, so how can they expect your time spent on the Management System to decrease? Chain reaction here. They push it...they follow it...they set the example...others will follow and that decreases your babysitting hours.

I work as a Quality manager 20 hours a week for a 10 person software company. I'm able to do what needs to be done to manage the compliance to ISO 9001 and do other projects, too.

Let me too say welcome! :bigwave:

Most of my clients have P/T quality and/or QMS staff. I have only had one client where the internal auditors' only job was to audit. Most have part-time management reps. A few have part-time inspectors, and even part-time quality managers. But, as has been mentioned, these are usually small (<50 employees).

Welcome to the Cove, Mary :bigwave:Firstly can I say I only found this forum a few weeks ago and already from reading other posts I have found it invaluableYou are not the only one... I still say the same thing, in spite of the fact that I found this place years ago. The reason I am posting was more a curiosity than anything else. A reason as good as any other, imo. am I the only "part-time" quality person on the forum and is it unusual for the size of our company to only have a part time quality representative? No and no. I know that you are not alone, and I think this solution is quite common (and often sensible) for your company size. In theory I am supposed to spend 20% of my time on quality but inevitably works out at more than that - much to the annoyance of my superiors!Yes... Well, that is not exactly unusual either :lol:. You probably need to work some kind of work description out with them. Those 20% may not be enough, and without a list of your chores it gets hard to prove the point.Thanks again for listening - no doubt this will be the first of many posts now I have found so many like-minded people all in one place! What a relief to know I am not the only one who thinks like me! Yep, I hear you. Keep the posts coming.

/Claes

I work in a small company of about 50 people as the quality assurance / incoming inspector. We actually have other sites around the world but this is our main headquarters so about half the people are management. What the means is the rest of us wear multiple hats. I spent nearly a year doing Quality Assurance full time as well as doing Shipping Receiving Full Time. I've also done many other jobs including being the mail man.

I doubt there are too many places out there were people do one job and one job only. Those good old days are probably behind us.

I work 21 hours per week (three 7 hour days) for a small family owned company, roughly 80 employees. My title is administrative assistant to the VP but my actual job is to manage the ISO 9001:2000 duties required to keep our certification.

I also have a marketing background so now and then I find myself being asked to do non-ISO tasks that utilize my skills, which is totally okay with my boss.

Mary, you are not alone!

Your definitely not alone, I am the management Rep. as well as the purchasing manager. My company as approx 45 employees and it is common to multi task. It keeps the job interesting although sometimes overwhelming especially when I was I was preparing to update to ISO 9001-2000 from 1994. Didn't think I'd get through it but alas...I did it, thanks to everyone here!

...I am the management Rep. as well as the purchasing manager. ...sometimes overwhelming especially when I was preparing to update to ISO 9001-2000 from 1994. Didn't think I'd get through it but alas...I did it, thanks to everyone here!
Me too - our company is 65 people. Usually it's fine - but as you say - the two jobs sometimes clash. I'm working on transitioning from ISO9001 to AS9100 before the end of the year and FAA Part 145 Repair Station Certification immediately after that. I have absolutely no aerospace background - so I'm educating myself as I go along - with much help here at the cove!

I, too, am only part time quality. We have 60 employees with a Team Based approach. It says in our Quality Policy that "Every member of the Team is acoountable for both process quality and product quality." And we mean it. Therefore, I mostly ride herd on the compliance trails (organizing objective evidence for the auditors), preparing and chairing Management Review, and acting as a docent for both 2nd and 3rd party external auditors. 50/50 split between QA and Manufacturing Engineering duties.

As you can see from the responses, and as I have found in my experiences, most Quality Managers have more than one function. Quality seems to be an overhead that most management does not want to accept.

Some of the best systems I have seen, which were in some of the most profitable companies I have audited, have dedicated full time Quality Managers.

One of my customers put it best:

"Quality costs - One way or another."

A company can either invest in a quality management system (officially documented and certified or one that is perhaps not written, but in fact the principles are implemented) or you will lose in terms of productivity.... and perhaps never have a chance to bid on that big contract just because you don't have a certificate hanging on the wall. Not to mention re-occuring problems, lost customers because of dissatisfaction, etc.

There really should be a school just for top executives to attend so they understand why they should want and need an effective QM and QMS.