Good morning cove members, I have found myself in a delicte position and was wondering if any one might have some advise on how to handle this. As the MR my job is to issure that all corrective actions are close out and their effectiveness verified. There are two CAR's that are currently open. One was to be addressed by Dec 13/02 and the other Feb 13/03. I have written several emails to the person who is responsible for preparing the action plan. In the last email I stressed the importance that these CAR's be delt with. The part that I'm having the greatest problem with is that this person is my direct boss. We are a small company therefore being the MR is a small part of my job, yet one I take serously. As the MR I answer to only the owners but in my daily job i answer to this manger. To go to the owners I feel would be wrong yet I know its probably what I should be doing, Another way of handling this I thought might be writing another CAR to this person for not addressing the last two he was given.
Any advise would be greatly aprreciated:confused:

First step - go to this person in person, instead of e-mails. Sit him down and ask what you can do to make this go away. Does he know what is expected? Offer your help in investigating the problem and finding corrective actions.

2nd step - You could attempt to resolve this by scheduling a meeting with the owners, the manager and yourself (include anyone else that should be in the loop). Explain how important it is to your certification that these issues are adressed, explain that you have offered your assistance in planning corrective actions and that you have gotten nowhere. Be very definite that the lack of commitment will keep your company from being certified, put it in writing and send the minutes out via e-mail and keep a copy of your sent message.

And then stop worrying about it. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. When you get a nonconformance, pull out the minutes and remind everyone that you told them what was going to happen. Why did they hire you to do the job if they aren't going to listen? (I ask this occasionally myself, it seems to bring them back to reality)

tracey said:

Good morning cove members, I have found myself in a delicte position and was wondering if any one might have some advise on how to handle this. As the MR my job is to issure that all corrective actions are close out and their effectiveness verified. There are two CAR's that are currently open. One was to be addressed by Dec 13/02 and the other Feb 13/03. I have written several emails to the person who is responsible for preparing the action plan. In the last email I stressed the importance that these CAR's be delt with. The part that I'm having the greatest problem with is that this person is my direct boss. We are a small company therefore being the MR is a small part of my job, yet one I take serously. As the MR I answer to only the owners but in my daily job i answer to this manger. To go to the owners I feel would be wrong yet I know its probably what I should be doing, Another way of handling this I thought might be writing another CAR to this person for not addressing the last two he was given.
Any advise would be greatly aprreciated:confused:

Hello Tracey

A couple of thoughts/ideas spring to mind. They might of course not apply to your case but they have all been encountered in similar cases I know of.

1 Might it be better to communicate about such important matters by means other than email?

2 Presumably the delay in addressing the CARs has serious business implications (mounting costs or scrap, lost business, increase in credit notes, customer complaints, whatever)? Have you these spelled these out clearly?

2 Since your boss clearly doesn't think the CARs are important, would there be a serious business downside if you just tore them up and moved on?

SteelMaiden said:

Explain how important it is to your certification that these issues are adressed

Be very definite that the lack of commitment will keep your company from being certified,

When you get a nonconformance



Surely these are not the arguments that matter --- not with all managers anyway??

Better to stress the $$$$ downside of inaction -- if there is none, why worry?

Nosmo,

In my experience, most managers do not have the capability of understanding that you are in the QMS business to save money until the system is running well and you can show them the numbers. Companies typically go for the certificate first and then when the results start to show improvement they finally buy in. Don't believe me? Read through the forums, you see it time after time. There is no buy in (usually) until long after the company is certified and you can start showing that there are dollars saved by all the work that was done implementing the processes. If your company is one that sees the value in the QMS before implementation, you are one of the lucky ones. I have been directly involved in the certification of three systems, and indirectly (intercompany "consulting") with seven others. We went through the same scenario with all of them. Ignored corrective actions until the registrar came down hard and management saw that they might not keep that piece of paper - Oh, my, what will we tell our customers?:frust:

SteelMaiden said:

I have been directly involved in the certification of three systems, and indirectly (intercompany "consulting") with seven others. We went through the same scenario with all of them.

Then may be a different approach is called for?

As a wise man[?] said "if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got!" Emphasis on a 'QMS' -- a construct with no value -- and on 'certification' will often get the management reaction you have experienced, I agree with that.

What appeals to me and to my fellow senior managers is hearing our quality people talking in our terms, not theirs. Often, the problem is that the quality expert is not "capable of understanding" or communicating well - except about ISO 9000 certification!!

Well, Nosmo, We are lucky that you have graced us with your presence. Without you, I wouldn't have realized just how wrong I've been all these years. Shucks, if I would have just changed my ways long ago, everything would have been perfect. Dag, how could I have been so stupid?

When I grow up, I want to be just like you. Self-righteous and judgemental.:rolleyes:

Nosmo King said:

Then may be a different approach is called for?

As a wise man[?] said "if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got!" Emphasis on a 'QMS' -- a construct with no value -- and on 'certification' will often get the management reaction you have experienced, I agree with that.


IMHO you are correct, Nosmo. If it ain't working, try something else!

Negative or null management reaction to a new concept is often caused by the way the topic is put across by the practitioner. This applies as much to 'quality' as to any other management tool.

PS don't be put off by SteelMaiden's response - just try keep a balanced debate going.

Tracey,

I used to be in a similar situation when I was MR in a small company. I used an access database to maintain all of my CARS, including audits. Weekly I routed a summary of all open issues to all managers and executive management. I was lucky that our general manager bought into the program and reviewed the reports on a regular basis. If anything went late, he followed up with the assigned manager without me having to go after people. He would not allow anything to be late, and I would not change a due date unless I was given a good reason with backup material (waiting on lab reports, need capital expenditure, etc.).

You might want to notify your owners about EVERY CAR on a regular basis. This way it will not look like you are "telling" on someone for the ones you don't get back on time. If your top management is involved enought, they should take over the problem of getting middle managers to complete their actions.

Tom

Nosmo King said:

Often, the problem is that the quality expert is not "capable of understanding" or communicating well - except about ISO 9000 certification!!
Does it sound to you like Tracey is "not capable of understanding or communicating well" and that this alleged deficiency is the reason the Boss keeps ignoring the CAR's he/she is responsible for? I don't buy it. I've been there too many times myself. Some folks tend to blame the messenger and say the message wasn't clear enough, but I think that is often a cop out. This guy who is not acting is a BOSS -- a MANAGER. Don't we expect something from them? A show of LEADERSHIP maybe? This reminds me of a thread of months ago. If this MANAGER doesn't understand the importance of CAR's at this stage of the game he/she is probably in way over their head being a manager. If Tracey is mistaken and needs correcting I would expect a MANAGER to speak with her and clear things-up, not ignore her. From the info. given I'd say the "manager" is the one "not capable of understanding or communicating well" in this case.

Regardless, at this point I'd speak to the "manager" personally and get a difinitive answer from him/her -- either they will help resolve the CAR's by such-and-such date or they refuse to cooperate, at which time it would be time to ask the owner what should be done next.

Tracy,

I gotta agree with Steel amd Mike. Sit down with this person and discuss why these CARs are so late. Perhaps it is a very simple reason, and the two of you can work it out. Let him know, that as your boss, you are having troouble accomplishing your assignments.

Nosmo said...

What appeals to me and to my fellow senior managers is hearing our quality people talking in our terms, not theirs.

I have to disagree with this. A senior manager can "hear" the words in their terms, but an effective manager will listen to the words, now matter how they are presented.

JMHO,
CarolX

Thank you everyone for your advise. I am going to talk to this manager and ask him what we can do to resolve these issues as Steel sugested. I need to make it clear that he does understand what needs to be done. One CAR was written by an internal auditor after they completed an audit and found design review meetings were not being conducted as stated in the procedures. The CAR was closed and when the Internal Auditor came back to verify the CAR it was found that once again the meetings were not being held.....another CAR was written. The other CAR was written by the owner and stemmed from a customer complaint.
He is aware of what needs to be done and when asked he always says "tomarrow"and explains how he feels about ISO. (Lets jut say it not good) Thats when I started sending the emails as a reminder. This time I will suggest that we have a meeting and as a team we can resolve this. This way the owner will be may aware and I won't feel like I betrayinfg my boss. I also like the idea of sending the owners updates on the Corrective actions. Whether they are opened/closed or verifying the effectiveness. That will insure that I won't be put into this position again. The Registar Audtitor will be visiting our establishment on May2/03 and this is the only problem area.

Here are some of the "real" reasons I find that CARs are not addressed on time:

1) The person receiving the CAR doesn't know what to do with it, so they don't -- they are waiting for you to tell them what to do
2) The person receiving the CAR is not trained in problem solving
3) Management puts a larger emphasis on other things. CARs have a low priority in the eyes of management

One of these three, or a combination can lead to late CARs. I can't say they are the problem here, because I don't have all the information, but you might want to explore these to see if any of this is happening.

Dave,

May I add to your post that some people in charge are continually putting out fires just so the product can be produced, shipped and the workforce paid.

These people are not consciencly trying to circumvent policy and procedures but may be overworked and have to make their own decisions as to how to prioritize. I would also blame upper management for understaffing, or people that are overwhelmed not being able to confront their supervisors with their situation.

These are the people that management reps or quality managers should be working with to improve the process. They know what is going on but they are mechanics and engineers, thay have a different mindset that the "quality guy" and need the assistance.

Al...:)

pancreas said:

May I add to your post that some people in charge are continually putting out fires just so the product can be produced, shipped and the workforce paid.

These people are not consciencly trying to circumvent policy and procedures but may be overworked and have to make their own decisions as to how to prioritize.

Exactly, Al.

It is just too simplistic to say that managers don't understand the importance of CARs. Some CARs are important -- but many are trivial and unhelpful.

It may be -- SHOULD be -- that 'top managers' understand better than the quality person what is best and how to prioritize.

Being a good manager doesn't necessarily mean that the person has no more to learn about quality concepts -- it is the job of the quality person to provide that education!!!

Being a good manager doesn't necessarily mean that the person has no more to learn about quality concepts -- it is the job of the quality person to provide that education!!!

IMHO - A "good" manager would/should get the education on his own and temper that education to the business needs.

Bill

From your experience, what percentage of managers spontaneously go out of their way to learn about (and to use) the concepts, principles, techniques and tools of 'quality'?

My experience - the percentage is very low - not even a double digit. :( (Maybe the eighteen piles on my desk are a result of "providing, reproviding, reproviding..... the "Quality Education" to the same set of managers. I also have problems meeting due dates that might be related :confused: :confused: :bonk: )

Bill

TRACEY I FEEL FOR YOU.

WHEN I FIRST CAME TO MY PRESENT COMPANY, THE WHOLE QUALITY SYSTEM WAS THOUGHT OF IN A NEGATIVE WAY AND A TOTAL WASTE OF TIME. IT TOOK ME TWO YEARS TO GET SOME TO BUY IN. CORRECTIVE ACTIONS WERE THOUGHT OF AS POINTING A FINGER TO PLACE BLAME AND VERY TIME CONSUMING TO COMPLETE.

I STARTED WITH TRAINING ON THE CORRECTIVE ACTION PROCESS IN A MORE POSITIVE WAY. I ALWAYS MADE MYSELF AVAILABLE TO ANYONE WHO NEEDED HELP. I ALSO MADE MENTION OF PROGRESS AND CLOSED CAR'S DURING EVERY APPROPRIATE MEETING. AT THE SAME TIME, I WAS NOT AFRAID OF MAKING WAVES WHEN NEEDED. WITH SOME PEOPLE THAT IS WHAT IT TOOK. THEY HAD TO SEE HOW FAR THEY COULD GET.

YOU KNOW THE PERSON YOU HAVE TO DEAL WITH. MAP A PLAN GEARED TOWARD THIS PERSON IF YOU HAVE TO. I ALSO AGREE THAT YOU SHOULD ISSUE ANOTHER CAR FOR NOT COMPLETING THE FIRST CAR IN A TIMELY MANNER. OF COURSE, THAT PLACES MORE WORK ON YOU BECAUSE IT COULD BE PRESENTED AS A TRAINING ISSUE TO HELP THE INDIVIDUAL SAVE FACE.

EITHER WAY, GOOD LUCK.

CINDY

Nosmo King said:


It may be -- SHOULD be -- that 'top managers' understand better than the quality person what is best and how to prioritize.

I don't think that is the problem here. One of the CAR's was written by the OWNER -- everyone's boss. Even if the darn thing was a complaint about the texture of the bathroom tissue, if the owner writes it, someone had better take it seriously.

db's #2 AND #3 are common reasons I've seen, with #3 most popular (3. Management puts a larger emphasis on other things. CARs have a low priority in the eyes of management." Then they wonder why they're fighting fires all the time! And quite often it is these same "managers" that will sit in a meeting with the other Big Dogs and extoll the virtues of ISO 9001, TQM, Six Sigma, Deming, Juran, Malcolm Baldrige, etc. and wax eloquently on their dedication to such principals.:rolleyes: They lose my respect right there -- I can't stand liars and hypocrites. I'd respect them more if they just said "I don't think this Q stuff is as valuable as the other stuff I spend my time on". I once worked with a Production VP who promised during his interview that he would take us to a Malcolm Baldrige award -- or at least the State equivalent -- in 3 years. He was the ISO 9001 MR at his former company as well. What a joke he was -- one of the least dedicated to Q guys I ever saw who would break the rules whenever he thought he could get away with it. He knew the proncipals -- just didn't follow them.

Tracey,
This is my first time posting, but hopefully I can add additional insight to your problem, one that I deal with on a regular basis. First, internal auditors are notorious for writing "bad" CARs. It seems to be a waste of valuable resources to write a nonconformance finding on not having design review meetings, even though your procedure says to. Your system seems to be stuck in the say what we do, do what we say thinking. Question is, what value do the review meetings have on improvement of your organization? There is no ISO requirement to have meetings, the intent is to review design inputs and changes. Our engineers do this almost exclusively through e-mails and phone-cons. Your system may be bogging down these brilliant folks with meeting requirements. Corrective Action has to be tied to an improvement action or it's not worth the effort. Check the section that Corrective Ation falls under in the 9001:2000 STD.
Secondly, Corrective action timelines need to be flexible, if not, effective implementation is destined to fail. It is not uncommon for corrective actions to take months or sometimes years to implement,depending on their nature. Who sets the due date and why did they choose it? Consider extension requests. The important thing is to get complete top management understanding of the issue, communicate internally and externally (we send out bi-weekly CAR status reports to top managemet), and make sure that the CARs are issued to the right manager (don't be afraid to re-issue after further investigation, you'll need this persons buy-in) Fred

Good first post Fred. Welcome to the Cove. :bigwave:

/Claes

Well everything came to a halt yesturday. The owners found out about the CAR's not being addressed and saw to it that there were. They wanted to know why I hadn't come to them.

I explained to the Engineer manger, as I have done before, that if he wanted to take a different approach to reviews we could do that. It was decided by all, including the manager, that this was the way they wanted it to be done. They feel that having these meeting will eliminate problems in the later stages of design.

It was also decided that I would send monthly updates on the Satatus of Correcctive Actions. Thanks to the cove members...this shouldn't happen again.

Tracey;)

The owners found out about the CAR's not being addressed and saw to it that there were.

Appears to me to be a textbook example of the "Quality Message" being driven from the top-down. I would think your life will be much "easier" from here on in to know you have the owners' support (and, thusly, the manager's "buy-in").

Even though we strayed from your original posting somewhat(thank goodness that doesn't happen much here .:rolleyes: ), I hope all the responses were somewhat helpful.

Bill

Freddiem11 said:

It seems to be a waste of valuable resources to write a nonconformance finding on not having design review meetings, even though your procedure says to. Your system seems to be stuck in the say what we do, do what we say thinking. Question is, what value do the review meetings have on improvement of your organization? There is no ISO requirement to have meetings, the intent is to review design inputs and changes. Our engineers do this almost exclusively through e-mails and phone-cons. Your system may be bogging down these brilliant folks with meeting requirements.

Secondly, Corrective action timelines need to be flexible, if not, effective implementation is destined to fail. It is not uncommon for corrective actions to take months or sometimes years to implement,depending on their nature. Who sets the due date and why did they choose it? Consider extension requests.
Hi Fred,

Welcome to the Cove.:bigwave:

While I agree with a few points you made I have to disagree with a few as well.

If the procedure says you will hold DR meetings and you don't do it IMO it is quite proper to write the CAR. The corrective action might be that mgt. determines the meetings are not needed, so the procedure is changed so that the need for meetings is deleted, which is fair. But someone who was responsible for the process at some time decided meetings were the way to go, so they must either change the procedure or follow it, otherwise all procedures might start being ignored.

As for CAR timelines... A manager is supposed to be a responsible LEADER. If he/she truly needs more time to do an investigation, etc. he/she should have the minimal courtesy to respond to the QM as to what the situation is and what the new expected timeline is, but ignoring the QM or just saying "I'll get to it tomorrow" day after day is unprofessional and not a sign of an effective manager, IMO.

Mike S. said:

Hi Fred,

Welcome to the Cove.:bigwave:

While I agree with a few points you made I have to disagree with a few as well.

If the procedure says you will hold DR meetings and you don't do it IMO it is quite proper to write the CAR. The corrective action might be that mgt. determines the meetings are not needed, so the procedure is changed so that the need for meetings is deleted, which is fair. But someone who was responsible for the process at some time decided meetings were the way to go, so they must either change the procedure or follow it, otherwise all procedures might start being ignored.

As for CAR timelines... A manager is supposed to be a responsible LEADER. If he/she truly needs more time to do an investigation, etc. he/she should have the minimal courtesy to respond to the QM as to what the situation is and what the new expected timeline is, but ignoring the QM or just saying "I'll get to it tomorrow" day after day is unprofessional and not a sign of an effective manager, IMO.

Mike, points well taken. However, I did not pick up from Tracey's situation that the CAR was being blown off, but rather was a re-curring CAR that did not get implemented iaw the initial timeframe. Many poor procedures were developed simply to meet the requirements of the 1994 std, it will take some time and system maturity to weed out these procedures that were developed simply as prescriptions to any noncompliance to ISO 9001. We are still weeding. Question is, if they start having the meetings as required, are they adding any value to design reviews or a just a ticket punch. There can be multiple causes to any system problem. Find the best one to act on, and decide this as a team, not one person responsible for the process.

Tracey, here's something you might want to try. My CAR status report bang list includes every manager in our organization. The report is not just a list of CARs and due dates, but the CARs are hyperlinked to the actual nonconformance report file (CAR) in the database. This not only gets hightened awareness, but managers now know that when a CAR in their area is issued, the entire management will see the issue and be familiar with any actions needed. You will shift accountability where it belongs, with the responsible manager. Most don't like this high level of visibility, so they take action.

Fred

I was a little late in reading this thread and it sounds like Tracey has the backing of upper management now. When I wrote our Corrective and Preventive Action Procedure I included the following clause: “The Department Manager assigned for taking action must respond, by the due date. Extensions of the due date will be granted if justified. Copies of overdue CAR’s are given to the Assistant General Manager for intervention.” It was my intent to give this old toothless dog a little chance to have some bite. So far, only a years time, I have not had to invoke the intervention portion of the clause. The Assistant General Manager is our top dog.

Well said Fred.

I agree, many non-compliances found during internal audit are trivial, and arise due to the fact that the procedure is poorly written or unnecessarily detailed. Such findings do not warrant any attention what so ever, no wonder the CAR system is failing - the issues are trivial.

This state of affairs has come about through two poor practices - 1) writing detailed procedures badly for everything and 2) auditing soley for compliance to procedures.

The answer ? Simple...

Adopt the ISO9001:2000 process approach, bin all your text based procedures, process map to sufficient depth to define the important cornerstones of your business processes, and audit for compliance to the standard itself.

M Greenaway said:

I agree, many non-compliances found during internal audit are trivial, and arise due to the fact that the procedure is poorly written or unnecessarily detailed. Such findings do not warrant any attention what so ever, no wonder the CAR system is failing - the issues are trivial.

The answer ? Simple...

Adopt the ISO9001:2000 process approach, bin all your text based procedures, process map to sufficient depth to define the important cornerstones of your business processes, and audit for compliance to the standard itself.

Help me here. Is this a general discussion or are you guys (Fred and Martin) saying Tracey's CAR's were trivial and should not have been addressed? If I remember correctly the owner wrote one and the other was for design review not being conducted. Are these trivial in your view?

If your process map says that at some point a test/inspection is to be done but you discover in internal audit it is not being done, is this trivial in your view?

Mike

I was speaking generally from my own past experiences.

I think the point is perhaps that we need to audit more deeply, not just look for the right tick in the right box, in order to give our findings more weight.

The example of missed inspection might simply be a one off example of incompleted records, we might be able to ascertain that the inspection was actually done - now an NC raised just because one person missed a signature on a piece of paper is largely trivial in my mind. The process of inspection is there to verify the product in some way, by looking at the process we could determine that the process was successfully completed, and real quality, as it is important to the customer, has been assured.

Martin,

Okay, I understand your perspective better now. I would never suggest we should do a formal CAR for every example of an undotted "i" or uncrossed "t" or trivial or one-off findings of a minor nature. Doing so would quickly exhaust the paper supply in many companies, not to memtion the reserve of patience of one's co-workers.

The example I gave of inspection not being done (in my mind) was not just a case of someone forgetting a signature on the inspection doc. (which I would do a simple verbal reminder about) but rather someone actually not performing (at all) an inspection that the process map says is required (presumably for good reason). In the latter case, I'm not so forgiving and would do a CAR. :bigwave: