Very Minimal Processes in ISO 9001:2008

[QAMTY]

Hi everybody

Could you give me some comments in this point?

Is there any advantage, benefits (less documents, less resources for the management, less coding for naming documents,etc) in trying to define very few processes in my system, I´ll explain.

In the main iso Quality management model, Suppose to show only one box for engineering and manufacturing being one of my main process and call it ENGMAN under it to have sub processes derived from Engineering and Manufacturing.

Thus avoiding to have two boxes with its sub processes,

A Consultant told me once without giving details "It´s better to have a very few processes" to manage the bussiness, that´s the reason
of my question.

Thanks in advance

[Marcelo Antunes]

He was probably talking about "business processes" which are the high-level processes of the organization as a whole. Any organization has some 4 or 5 of those (for example, business management, resource management, client satisfaction and marketing) and really not more than those.

The other processes (work processes or any other name) are usually derived from the core ones.

[ssz102]

i don't know your company's size,
if it is a small organization, the dept are not necessary divide up so clearly, that means one people can do many things to the process of production is better than simply it seems to
i think the consultants that audited you company is the same mean as me

[QAMTY]

Thanks Marcelo

Additional to those you mentioned would be the Realization process?
Could you explain a little bit more?

Thanks

[Big Jim]

In Reply to Parent Post by QAMTY

Hi everybody

Could you give me some comments in this point?

Is there any advantage, benefits (less documents, less resources for the management, less coding for naming documents,etc) in trying to define very few processes in my system, I´ll explain.

In the main iso Quality management model, Suppose to show only one box for engineering and manufacturing being one of my main process and call it ENGMAN under it to have sub processes derived from Engineering and Manufacturing.

Thus avoiding to have two boxes with its sub processes,

A Consultant told me once without giving details "It´s better to have a very few processes" to manage the bussiness, that´s the reason
of my question.

Thanks in advance

In my early days I ran across a few companies that had an extraordinary number of processes. One in particular had over five hundred. They had it all carefully charted out and performed their internal audits using established checklists for each individual process. Eventually the aging quality manager fell ill and was out on an extended leave of absence. With on one at the helm, they fell behind on performing those internal audits.

I think it is likely that your consultant is trying to save you from that sort of approach. The above example may be an extreme example, but to some extent, it would be awkward to run a system with fifty, or even twenty-five processes. In those examples I would agree with your consultant.

You do need to figure out how many processes you really need to run the organization EFFECTIVELY. How many truly explain how your company really operates.

I'm having a hard tome seeing how you can do that with only one or two.

Why don't you have a talk with that consultant and get clarification of what he meant?

[DrM2u]

There are many ways (levels) of depicting the processes within a company. For example, you can depict them like a system (one of the highest levels):
customer -> input (need) -> system box (elements and processes within a company) -> output (satisfied need) -> cutomer base

You could also go down a level or more and, like Marcelo mentioned, depict the business processes and their interractions. I like to categorize them in these major categories:
- customer related processes box (marketing, sales, quoting, product engineering, etc)
- product realization processes box (production)
- support processes box (process engineering, production planning, purchasing, receiving, shipping, maintenance, etc)
- planning and control processes box (business planning, resources management, audits, quality planning and control, etc)
- improvement process box (CA/PA, continuous improvement, or whatever you like to call it)

From here, you can go even lower and depict the interraction among the processes and sub-processes within each category. As always, ask yourself what is the intent of depicting the interraction among processes. Some reasons, like others have indicated, are:
- to show the customers the major processes within the organization
- to satisfy the requirements of a standard
- to aid with the audit process
- to train personnel
- etc

Whatever the process map will look like, it has to make sense for the organization. Hope this helps some.

[sagai]

Your Consultant had bloody right.

Actually I would caveat if the Consultant said procedure instead of process, people tend to use these worlds interchangeably, however they are not the same means at all, anyway.

The details of the QMS should be in accordance with lot of things, some of them are the size and the competence of the people. In most cases it appears to be forgotten and the QMS is a kind of self expression of the QM guys.

Beware, when you voluntarily self declare a process/procedure/work instruction/template/etc. as part of your QMS, ALL of those voluntarily set rules are enforceable in case an audit uncover a deficiency.
With other words, if you do not set the procedures on the absolute minimum level in order to fulfill the requirements of your corresponding regulation, your chances are increasing to run into audit non conformities.

This is one of the main thing, however there are further downsides of the over-sized QMS like the cost of maintenance, difficulties to apply any well integrated changes, tendency that people just do not give a shXt of the overwhelming documentation, clarity, etc.

Cheers