Management Review Meeting Suggestions

[tony wardle]

From September last year, I initiated a weekly review meeting. I chair the meeting and all managers are present. (I admit that the Directors attendance is poor) Currently we discuss all the issues as required by the Standard ie - field failures, key quality indicators like scrap and rework, CARs and their effectiveness, audit results etc. and then add some key budget indicators.

My problem is that I seem to be the only one driving this and getting others to get more involved or to get along is impossible. Part of the problem is that top management often dont get involved or offer excuses for poor quality and never drive to the next step of suggesting correction actions or supporting action plans for improvement.
The other issue I have is that there a solid divide between sales and production. Its almost as if the two groups are from two different companies!

I am sure that I am not alone on this one - can anyone share a "turnaround strategy" to get some action out of the management "team"?

[D.Scott]

Originally Posted by tony wardle

From September last year, I initiated a weekly review meeting. I chair the meeting and all managers are present. (I admit that the Directors attendance is poor) Currently we discuss all the issues as required by the Standard ie - field failures, key quality indicators like scrap and rework, CARs and their effectiveness, audit results etc. and then add some key budget indicators.

My problem is that I seem to be the only one driving this and getting others to get more involved or to get along is impossible. Part of the problem is that top management often dont get involved or offer excuses for poor quality and never drive to the next step of suggesting correction actions or supporting action plans for improvement.
The other issue I have is that there a solid divide between sales and production. Its almost as if the two groups are from two different companies!
I am sure that I am not alone on this one - can anyone share a "turnaround strategy" to get some action out of the management "team"?

Tony,

I am sorry to be the one to bring you the news you already know. You are describing one of the most common situations in what often becomes a failing quality management system.

Place your coffee cup on your desk with a length of string 6 inches from it. Now push the string in a straight line to the cup. It can't be done. Try again but this time pull the string to the cup - success.

You can't push middle management to reach the goal you are trying to achieve. You have to have top management pulling them to the goal. Without commitment of the top management, you are fighting an uphill battle which I think you will find is headed for failure. You must get your management fully committed to the quality management system or you will be repeating this same story for the rest of your stay at your company.

I feel sure you already know the answer here but without the commitment of your top management, things aren't going to get a lot better. Talk to the boss and get him to understand that. The worst that could happen is you get fired which might not be such a bad thing if he won't support the QMS.

Dave

[Duke Okes]

Integrate the management review with other performance reviews that are currently done, and attended, by top management. Do a succinct analysis and report of the status of the quality system, and have them simply provide their opinions/advice as to the need for action.

Read ISO 9001 section 5.5.2.b I think far too many people expect high level execs to sit around and talk about details, instead of having the quality manager do the analysis and report to top management on their findings.

[fuzzy]

Originally Posted by tony wardle

From September last year, I initiated a weekly review meeting. I chair the meeting and all managers are present. (I admit that the Directors attendance is poor) Currently we discuss all the issues as required by the Standard ie - field failures, key quality indicators like scrap and rework, CARs and their effectiveness, audit results etc. and then add some key budget indicators.

My problem is that I seem to be the only one driving this and getting others to get more involved or to get along is impossible. Part of the problem is that top management often dont get involved or offer excuses for poor quality and never drive to the next step of suggesting correction actions or supporting action plans for improvement.
The other issue I have is that there a solid divide between sales and production. Its almost as if the two groups are from two different companies!


I am sure that I am not alone on this one - can anyone share a "turnaround strategy" to get some action out of the management "team"?

At first thought, I said you were meeting too frequently and I thought you said monthly but weekly is way too frequently to meet IMO to conduct a quasi-mangement review. You are involving your top management in the micro-portion of your QMS...no wonder they seem disconnected . Did you go to a weekly meeting in reaction to a similar lack of interest when the MR was spaced further apart? I must say that I comment from a minimum once per year QMS review system, and we meet our minimum .

My feeling is that more effectiveness can be gained from the presentation of analyzed trend data, than asking top management to care about samples of one...

[Teri]

Originally Posted by fuzzy

At first thought, I said you were meeting too frequently and I thought you said monthly but weekly is way too frequently to meet IMO to conduct a quasi-mangement review. You are involving your top management in the micro-portion of your QMS...no wonder they seem disconnected .
My feeling is that more effectiveness can be gained from the presentation of analyzed trend data, than asking top management to care about samples of one...

I agree, we meet bi-annually, and sometimes, I feel that is too much. I know there is no way I would get our mgt. people to come weekly.

[JaneB]

When you say you initiated the meetings, what was the driver/s?

Are there other meetings happening, or is this the only one?

Are things like budget/sales, failures, scrap, rework, current issues & actions etc, already being considered, but in a different forum or forums? If so, when & where?

Yes, the Standard requires certain things to be discussed - but not all in the same forum or by the same people at the same time!

My experience is that meetings prompted by, & specifically keyed to, the requirements of the Standard & its inputs & outputs is usually doomed to failure.

BUT if I examine a business & what it does already, how, when & where they cover off those various issues, & put it in terms the business already uses, it's almost always being done. But often not in the same forum, esp. in larger businesses. Sometimes by different people (dependson co. size & personnel). And sometimes not meeting all requirements, eg, for records, so it requires a bit of tweaking.

One issue is how you understand the 'management review' term - people often use this to mean different things, hence strong debates about how often is 'right' or 'too frequent' (not possible IMO!) or not frequent enough...

I did post a management review matrix here to help one firm with this issue of MR - I can find the link/repost if you like.

[Ted Schmitt]

I don´t want to sound repetitive, but I also agree that weekly reviews are a little to much for Top Management. Use the weekly meetings maybe to discuss the implementation of CAR´s, or Preventative Actions...
Use the Management review meetings (we do it every semester) to discuss the items listed in the standard, but also to gain TM support, try and put $ figures to scrap reports, cost of non quality, failure in delivery etc...
We had a lead auditor once who said, when dealing with top management, try and put things in perspective for them... for example... your yearly scrap report measure the cost of the scrap in how many BMW´s could be bought, or how many pizza´s that represents... this will certainly open their eyes (depending if they like cars or pizza´s !

Hope this helps !

[tony wardle]

Thanks guys for the advice.

In terms of quarterly of yearly mgt review - we used to operate this way. However, I found that we would all agree on improvements at the meeting then go back to our old ways next day. If timing plans to implement improvements are issued, generally the plan would go into operation a week before the next review.

The biggest issues I have to contend with is the expectation from middle management.
They have taken the view that if top management is not seen to get involved, why should they?
The other issue being communication - the " I didn't know" and "nobody informed me" seems to have gone now. This was spurred by the expectation that communication was the panacea for all problems.

Maybe the best solution - taken from your comments - would be to continue as we are but to try to get commitment from top management to participate once a month so that they are at least live to the discussions and show face to mid management?