AS9100 Contract Review - Can the Sales Manager be the process owner?

[pstephen]

With an AS 9100 Rev B QA system, can the Sales Manager be the process owner for 'Contract Review'?

Please note that all previous QA systems, ISO, Rev A, this has been the cource of structure. Understood with ownership, this is ownership for the program and day to day structure is managed by him.

Thanks,

Philip Stephen

[BadgerMan]

Welcome!

I am not sure I completely understand your question but within our system I view our sales/contracts manager as the owner of the RFP/RFQ/contract review/acceptance.

[Sidney Vianna]

Originally Posted by pstephen

With an AS 9100 Rev B QA system, can the Sales Manager be the process owner for 'Contract Review'?

Sure. However, the process needs to ensure that all applicable and relevant functions have a chance to review the RFPs and/or orders, as applicable. Many times, customer dissatisfaction originates from order reviews performed by people without the technical knowledge to review them. The complexity of the product normally influences who are the required parties involved with such reviews.

[Cari Spears]

Hi Philip -

How come you're asking? Is there someone at your company who does not think so? Or is there something in AS9100 that you thought might mean the Sales Mgr could not?

[Jim Wynne]

Originally Posted by pstephen

With an AS 9100 Rev B QA system, can the Sales Manager be the process owner for 'Contract Review'?

Please note that all previous QA systems, ISO, Rev A, this has been the cource of structure. Understood with ownership, this is ownership for the program and day to day structure is managed by him.

Thanks,

Philip Stephen

Welcome to the Cove, Stephen

I see by your user profile that you describe yourself as a sales manager (btw, you might want to have a look at your "Background" entry in your profile; click on "User CP" above). I don't want what I'm about to say to seem at all offensive, because it is a generalization and not directed at you personally.

Disclaimer out of the way, although there's no explicit restriction, I would be very hesitant to put the sales manager in charge of contract review because it has the very real possibility of creating conflict of interest issues. Sales managers and their staffs are almost always evaluated based on the number of things (or the value of the things) that they sell. This provides a built-in disincentive to reject proposals. This is not the fault of sales people, but rather a fault of the way that sales people are compensated and evaluated. For contract review, I would prefer to see a more disinterested (not uninterested) individual given ownership.