Organizational Charts - Where does the Quality Assurance Manager fit in

[thbohnsack]

Hello,

I am curious as to how other companies are structured, and exactly where in the organizational chart the Quality Assurance Manager fits in. High level - low level, Executive Management?

thanks,

[Teri]

A lot depends on company size, IMO.

My company: several divisions, 600+ employees spread over the divisions.
Our quality managers (one for each division) reports directly to the quality director. The quality director reports to the vice-president.

I feel a quality manager should be at the same level as your operations (production) manager.

[thbohnsack]

We are a small (< 100 employees) steel processing company -we don't have a product line - and the the Quality Assurance and Engineering responsibilities are managed by the same individual. It has worked well in our culture - Engineering is more of a sales function, and the Quality responsibilities are continuing to grow.

is there any reason why one cannot wear both hats?

[Teri]

Originally Posted by thbohnsack

We are a small (< 100 employees) steel processing company -we don't have a product line - and the the Quality Assurance and Engineering responsibilities are managed by the same individual. It has worked well in our culture - Engineering is more of a sales function, and the Quality responsibilities are continuing to grow.

is there any reason why one cannot wear both hats?

If it's working, I don't see why not. If the quality responsibilities continue to grow you may want to rethink the responsiblity loads, as the last thing you want to do is "burn" someone out.

[hogheavenfarm]

We were recently told in a customer audit that would not accept our engineering manager being our quality manager as well. While not expressly forbibben in general, alot depends on who you are working for. Our customers send thier auditors in once or twice per year, and audit us to thier QMS , even though our own QMS is much less developed, (we are a small company, our customers are 1000+). We have had to separate functions strictly for this reason alone.
To answer the original question, the manager (or director) usually reports to a top level position in the company. ISO says that the designated management representative should report to a top level position, whether that person is the QA manager is another story of course.

[thbohnsack]

Thanks for the responses -

Can anyone give me a good reason why Engineering cannot report to Quality?

We have no design function, our engineering department for the most part is for matching customer product to a process, and costing out additional labor - we are estimating almost. And so much is intertwined between our QA & ENG, I just don't know how to split them - or even if we would have to.

[MIREGMGR]

We have ~ 200 employees making a variety of medical device types. We have separate Quality and Regulatory managers, with the Regulatory manager also doing process/materials R&D and sales support. The Regulatory and Quality managers are at the same level as the Production, Engineering and Facilities managers, and all report to the President, who also manages Sales/Customer Service directly.

(Purchasing/Materials Management and Accounting report to the Controller. The President and the Controller report to the CEO/owner.)

[qualitytrec]

A lot depends on your company's size. I think Quality should report to the business decision level in the organization. And should have a voice separate from the function responsible for "making" the commodity that your company sells.
The smaller the company the harder it becomes to separate hats but as much as possible Quality needs to be the eyes and voice of the customer.

Mark