Determining the Process Owner

Hi,

Sometimes I'm not sure who is (or should be) the process owner.

Imaginary scenario:

-holder/founder company

--Thermal Powerplant1 (CEO1)
---ThermoBlockA (Director of A)
---- Sub-process1 (Manager of Sub-process1)
---- Sub-process2 (Manager of Sub-process2)
---ThermoBlockB (Director of B)
---- Sub-process1 (Manager of Sub-process1)
---- Sub-process2 (Manager of Sub-process2)

--Thermal Powerplant2 (CEO2)
etc...

For example, who is the proces owner of "Sub-process1", that is inside "ThermoBlockA" in "Thermal Powerplant1"? Is it "Manager of Sub-process1" or "Director of A"?

Similar, who is the process owner of whole "Thermal Powerplant1". Is it "CEO1" or "some director of a founder company"? "Thermal Powerplant1" produces energy by plan of holder/founder company, not by it's own vision.

The misapprehension is because of this:

"Sub-process1" does not exist because of itself. It exists because of "ThermoBlockA", and all it's activities are in function of "ThermoBlockA". "ThermoBlockA" is commanding to "Sub-process1"?

On the other side, "Sub-process1" has the person ("Manager of Sub-process1"), that is the most responsible for all activities in "Sub-process1".

Furthermore, who is the process owner for "Internal Audits"? Internal Audits could be called by any Director in the company, for it's scope of activities. But, the most responsible person to establish THE PROCEDURE Internal Audits is, let's say, Management representative, which in fact mainly starts the process of Internal Audits for the whole company as scope.

So, is the process owner the one to whome the process is necessary (caller, sender), or the one who is the most responsible inside the process, as a person to maintain the order in the process?

Or, as always, it's up to us to decide


Best Regards,
Vladimir Stefanović

Determining a process owner is not really related to the process itself (althought it might be), but in fact it?s related to who has the responsibility and authority related to the process.

Positive thinking: who needs to make sure that the process results are achieved?

Negative thinking: who is to blame if the process results are not achieved?

Want to find the real process owner? Go mess with the process and see who complains the longest.

bobdoering said:

Want to find the real process owner? Go mess with the process and see who complains the longest.

Click to expand...

So true so true.

In a well documented QMS, those processes and procedures that are controlled should have process owners identified and documented.

Depending upon the organizational structure of the operation, ownership may be as simple as the local area manager, but specialized operations may have more remote process owners. For auditing purposes, I typically contact the Quality Manager and ask to confirm process owners if the documentation is not specific enough.

I usually assign Corrective Actions to the manager of the Department where the deficiency is found. Manufacturing deficiency goes to the Manufacturing Manager, Purchasing deficiency goes to the Purchasing Manager. Of course this only works in a traditional organization structure.

Funny. It might be worth trying out to see what happens.

Basically, I asked this question because I was in the past (in my head) equaling Process Owner and Procedure Approval Authority, for the procedure that is covering the process.

I noticed that there is a positive correlation in that observation, but not always.

For example, if the procedure is standalone, then Process Owner mainly has also the Procedure Approval Authority.

If the procedure is like an independent function, waiting to be be called (when necessary or by plan schedule), then Process Owner could be the caller, and the Procedure Approval Authority could be someone else.

Suppose, a Mobile phone is a process.

I'm/you're/he's the owner of the device, etc... We all use it for our needs, to achieve something.

All changes to the Mobile phone as a device, are not up to us - it's up to the manufacturer (Apple, Samsung, Nokia, ...).

All that is OK to me, I don't care how they do it - until the Mobile phone as a device keeps Inputs/Outputs as I expect.

IMO, the line where the owner ("Process Owner") and manufacturer ("Procedure approval authority") meets, is the pre-defined interface (concerted inputs/outputs).

If I'm a genius who knows how to produce my own Mobile phone, nothing disputably to be both the "Process Owner" and the "Procedure approval authority".

To me the process owner is the one who is looking at and accountable for the output metrics to determine if the process is meeting the input received and driving the process to function and produce an output.
In your example each sub process would have an owner that is accountable for each subprocess.
A person can "own" more than one process.