QMS (quality management system) in local administration / operations

One of the most confusing elements in new ISO 9001 standard is to present the hierarchy of processes and their relations in the organisation. How to choose processes?How to establish such a hierachy, how to divide the processes how to present them in the quality manual?
And one more.... how to present such hierarchy not for typical oragnisation which has typical structure (marketing > design > production > after sales service ) but for organisation such local administration office?
I know - the best way is to use flow charts. But it's not that easy for the local administration unit (most of processes are described in legal requirements but it doesn't guarantee the quality for the "customer")
Is it a good staring point for establishing a hierachy of processes to divide them into Planning (strategies, budgeting, investitions plans) > Operations (typical tasks of local administration + purchasing +training + documents control) > Monitoring, Analysis, Verification, Improvement activities (audits, monitoring of processes, inspections, customer satisfaction analysis, management reviews etc.)
The problem is how to present the relationship of the processes which belong to those three groups.
I'd be very happy if enyone could give some advice concerning the questions above.

[Marc]

-> One of the most confusing elements in new ISO 9001
-> standard is to present the hierarchy of processes and
-> their relations in the organisation.

I disagree.

-> How to choose processes?How to establish such a hierachy,
-> how to divide the processes how to present them in the
-> quality manual?

You start out with a top level over view and start hanging things off it. You can use flow charts or a fishbone diagram. You look at all processes. There is no 'choosing' at this point. And about the only processes you might exclude are financially related (as far as ISO 9001 goes).

You can divide them up if you wish. It really doesn't matter how you represent them. The important part is ensuring inter-relationships are well defined (read communication and responsibilities).

Take a read through slides around http://16949.com/Imp/sld027.htm

As far as a starting point, my recommendation is for departments to map their processes. Then see how they integrate.

-> how to present such hierarchy not for typical
-> oragnisation which has typical structure (marketing >
-> design > production > after sales service ) but for
-> organisation such local administration office?

Are you a service organization? If you're an office which is part of a larger organization and you plan to limit the scope to your office, then you are probably the 'same' as a service organization.

There is more specific information in my Implementation Guide - unfortunately it's not in the posted 'samples'.

-> I know - the best way is to use flow charts. But it's not
-> that easy for the local administration unit (most of
-> processes are described in legal requirements but it
-> doesn't guarantee the quality for the "customer")

Umm, well, flow charts are not the point of determining 'critical' or other CHARACTERISTICS. As you go through process mapping you might want to address 'quality' characteristics of the product or service.

Tell me - what, specifically, is your product? Not your company's product if you are part of a larger organization. What is your department's product? Remember - a service can be defined in terms of one or more product(s).

Tell me - what, specifically, is your product? Not your company's product if you are part of a larger organization. What is your department's product? Remember - a service can be defined in terms of one or more product(s).[/B][/QUOTE]


Thank You Marc for all Your comments. I think Your question is related to my wrong english expression of what I called "local administration office" - I meant the institutin that governs the city or the local community. In my opinion the problem is to establish a hierarchy and show the relationship of the processes in such organization because their flow is not as typical as in other service organizations like banks, insurance companies, training orgs. etc. Some processes are specific for one department (eg. issuing a driving licence or id card), some require a cooperation of two or more departments, some are common for all departments (eg. training, documents control, purchasing goods and services for, raporting). They are all described by "law". In big such institutions there are hundreds of processes.
I tried to find some comments how to design the QMS (eg. main processes division like in Deming's cycle - Planning>Operation>Verification and Improvement) for such a institution which is not typical due to complexity of processes particularly for big cities and municipalities.