One company, more plants, different procedures..how to align them ?

A

Al Hector

Hello,

The time has arrived also for me to start my first thread on Cove forum.
I need an advice and I know that Cove forum is the best place from where I can get it.:applause:

I work for a company with many plans on different geographical region.
Almost all the plants are ISO9001 certificated.

The Head Office is not ISO 9001 certificated (is planned for next year).
The Head Office has some group procedures for HR, Purchasing, IT, finances and some others. The forms related with these procedures are annexes to them and have no individual code.

Every plant has a different system regarding ISO 9001 documentation; they use other codes for the procedures and forms. Some procedures contain some excerpt from the group procedures.

I will be involved in a project which has the purpose to align and update all the group quality system procedures.
I need some ideas regarding how to do this because I have to build a plan with some targets regarding the Group Quality System Procedures unification and how to achieve them.

I wait for your suggestion!
Thank you!

Alin
 

SteelMaiden

Super Moderator
Trusted Information Resource
To start with, my only question is "does this alignment actually gain you anything?" I mean, I can see if you have one team that is overseeing the QMS for all divisions/locations, but are these locations stand alone in everything else? then maybe alignment should be closer to communications of best practices and not forcing the plants to adopt systems created elsewhere? Now, I am not saying that this is the way to go, but only that you take it into consideration. Best of luck with your project, whatever you end up doing.:agree:
 
A

Al Hector

:thanx: SteelMaiden for your answer.

To adopt the best practices is also something what i have in mind. In this moment i am located in one factory and i have seen one another plant (the first build one) – this two plants have not so big difference between their procedures and I took contact with the procedures from a third plant.
But there are other plants from different continents which are using other procedures and in are written in other language than English. It was in plan that I should go in an internal audit also to those plants, but with the actual global crisis nothing is so sure.
I’m also not convinced that is good to impose one system to the other plants but I still don’t know which is the best approach. I am relative new to this company and one of my duties is to improve their quality system.

Alin
 

SteelMaiden

Super Moderator
Trusted Information Resource
Excellent! I am glad that you are looking at this with an open mind. I fully agree that plants in "the same corporate family" can benefit from one another and looking at best practices. But, too many times I've heard of corporations gobbling up plants and imposing structures before looking at all the angles. Keeping your options open and not just going in with preconceived notions on what should happen should serve you well.
 

RoxaneB

Change Agent and Data Storyteller
Super Moderator
My own organization is in a very similar situation. While I used to be based at a site (i.e., all processes, one site), I am now based in Corporate Procurement (i.e., all sites, one process). We are attempting to standardize what we can within Procurement, ensuring that policies and procedures are aligned with our best practices.

Not all of our sites' Procurement teams utilize the same software platforms. This is slowly being worked on and should be complete by mid-2010. As such, our documentation is being developed to support the software that we will all eventually be using.

The policies and procedures are written in such a way that they are meaningful but do not contain any information that is too specific (i.e., In "Receipt of Materials and Services", we discuss moving nonconforming items to a quarantine area, but we do not say that it's located in the south-east corner of the storeroom, as this is not value-added to the process and is very site-specific).

Corporate Procurement is not registered to ISO 9001. Some of our sites are and all sites are to be registered in the very near future. For document control purposes, communication, training, etc., the site-level documentation refers to the Corporate documentation (upon which I have developed a document control process).

I strongly encourage the sites to STOP using the copy-paste method...some sites were copying Corporate information and pasting it into their own documentation. As there was no reference to the Corporate documentation, if I changed something and informed the sites, they did not have local mechanism to review their own documentation. Frankly, I see no reason for the information to be in more than one document...especially as during one recent assessment, I found information on the same process in 3 different docs at the site and all 3 bits of information conflicted with each other.

All site Procurement personnel have access to the Corporate Procurement documentation. We do not have access to theirs...not that I want it...23 sites is a bugger to filter through! :rolleyes:

As sites incorporate our Procurement software, we review their site documentation and update it with them, plus we discuss what can be removed in lieu of the existence of the policies and procedures at the Corporate level.

Hope that helps!
 
A

Al Hector

:thanks: Roxane

I also meet the problem with the copy paste method without update.

Alin
 
J

JaneB

The policies and procedures are written in such a way that they are meaningful but do not contain any information that is too specific (i.e., In "Receipt of Materials and Services", we discuss moving nonconforming items to a quarantine area, but we do not say that it's located in the south-east corner of the storeroom, as this is not value-added to the process and is very site-specific).
Yes, these are very good ways of doing it.

I agree with you also about avoiding copy-paste - it duplicates info (and is extra work!).

Frankly, I see no reason for the information to be in more than one document
Completely agree.

I've done this in a few multinational and multisite organsations, and recommend the same approach & structure as Roxanne. Control what you must (and can most effectively) at head office (top level), then allow sites to supplement those but not replace, ignore or copy them.

You should aim for the benefits of consistency as far as possible, while at site level, having more location-specific documents (procedures etc). These would reference, and be within the context of, corporate (head office) docs but do not duplicate.
 

Ettore

Quite Involved in Discussions
We are attempting to standardize what we can within Procurement, ensuring that policies and procedures are aligned with our best practices.
Who have decided that one practise is better than another? Do you have a corporate quality manager for managing this or others discrepancies ?:confused:
 

RoxaneB

Change Agent and Data Storyteller
Super Moderator
Who have decided that one practise is better than another? Do you have a corporate quality manager for managing this or others discrepancies ?:confused:

Cavanna:

In the realm of the Procurement processes, we have a global Procurement committee that has deemed what our "best practices" are. We assess to these best practices and develop action plans for each site to help get them on the path towards attain best practices.

Our policies and high level procedures are written for global application - meaning that they can be applied at our sites around the world, no matter the culture, language, or geographic location.

We do have a corporate Management Systems group that is responsible for standardizing the application of our business system tools throughout the company - 5S, Failure Analysis, Standardization, Training, Routine Results Management, etc. The Management Systems group is not responsible for determining Procurement's best practices.
 

Ettore

Quite Involved in Discussions
We have four quality manager and four environmental and safety manager and the result is ever

:blowup:
 
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