Do we really need a traditional Quality Manual?

[Quality27]

Greetings guys,

Last few years I have worked for a large global organization and had 3 divisions under my watch. We had a 70 page quality manual and enormous number of procedures for every little requirement.

It was a Herculean task to make management/people from other departments read the manual. Now forget about understanding. This is a huge waste of effort for no real value to the company.

Recently I joined a small manufacturing company(less than 50 employees and just does fabrication) and they are also in a similar state with a large manual and too many procedures.

Now I am heading towards a goal of less than 8 page manual and as few procedures as possible.

I wanted to get your opinion on Clause 5, Leadership which was written as following in the new manual:

Leadership
President of Abc Company is accountable for the effectiveness of the Quality Management System and ensuring that the system achieves intended results. He also promotes and demonstrates commitment to customer focus, process approach, and risk based thinking and the importance of meeting customer, statutory and regulatory requirements.
President shall ensure that the responsibilities and authorities for relevant roles are assigned, communicated and understood within the organization. The responsibility and authority of ensuring the Quality Management system conforms to the requirements of ISO 9001:2015 are assigned to the Quality Director of Abc Company who will also act as the management representative for the organization.
An updated organizational chart will be maintained and communicated within the organization.
All levels of personnel have the authority to halt nonconforming processes and recommend corrective actions using the proper procedures as well as any recommendations for continuous improvement.

If the auditor asks for objective evidence, I will show the following:

1. Signed Quality Policy
2. Quality Objectives Document
3. Management Review Outputs
4. President lead trainings on Process Approach and Risk Based Thinking
5. Management of Change Process
6. Review meeting slides mentioning customer focus, importance of QMS
7. Org. Chart

What do you think?

-

Thank you.

 

[hogheavenfarm]

I didn't think the president could "assign responsibility and management" of the quality policy any longer. Wasnt that the intent of 2015? Make TM responsible, not assigning it to an MR?

 

[Stijloor]

Greetings guys,

Last few years I have worked for a large global organization and had 3 divisions under my watch. We had a 70 page quality manual and enormous number of procedures for every little requirement.

It was a Herculean task to make management/people from other departments read the manual. Now forget about understanding. This is a huge waste of effort for no real value to the company. <snip>

How about this?

Leadership

The President of Abc Company is accountable for the effectiveness of the Quality Management System and ensuring that the system achieves its intended results. He also promotes and demonstrates commitment to customer focus, process approach, and risk based thinking and the importance of meeting customer, statutory and regulatory requirements.
President ensures that the responsibilities and authorities for relevant roles are assigned, communicated and understood within the organization. The responsibility and authority of ensuring the Quality Management system and its processes conforms to the requirements of ISO 9001:2015 and Interested Parties is assigned to competent Process Owners.
An updated organizational chart is maintained and communicated within the organization.
All levels of personnel have the authority to halt nonconforming processes and recommend corrective actions using the proper procedures as well as any recommendations for continuous improvement.

 

[Quality27]

I didn't think the president could "assign responsibility and management" of the quality policy any longer. Wasnt that the intent of 2015? Make TM responsible, not assigning it to an MR?

Clause 5.3

Top management shall assign the responsibility and authority for:
a) ensuring that the quality management system conforms to the requirements of this International Standard;

Do you believe I am understanding this wrong? I believe they can assign but TM is accountable. Let me know your thoughts.

 

[Quality27]

How about this?

Leadership

The President of Abc Company is accountable for the effectiveness of the Quality Management System and ensuring that the system achieves its intended results. He also promotes and demonstrates commitment to customer focus, process approach, and risk based thinking and the importance of meeting customer, statutory and regulatory requirements.
President ensures that the responsibilities and authorities for relevant roles are assigned, communicated and understood within the organization. The responsibility and authority of ensuring the Quality Management system and its processes conforms to the requirements of ISO 9001:2015 and Interested Parties is assigned to competent Process Owners.
An updated organizational chart is maintained and communicated within the organization.
All levels of personnel have the authority to halt nonconforming processes and recommend corrective actions using the proper procedures as well as any recommendations for continuous improvement.

Thank you for the corrections. Do you also believe that QMS responsibilities cannot be assigned to one person?

 

[hogheavenfarm]

Top management is responsible for the effectiveness of the QMS, of course they can assign someone to oversee and manage it, this was the role of the former MR, and many company's kept the MR role, but 2015 makes it clear that TM will be much more involved now, to avoid dumping all the responsibility on the quality manager of MR.
So the management of it can be assigned but the TM cannot abdicate his responsibility of owning it.
In practice I have not noticed any difference however.

 

[Quality27]

Top management is responsible for the effectiveness of the QMS, of course they can assign someone to oversee and manage it, this was the role of the former MR, and many company's kept the MR role, but 2015 makes it clear that TM will be much more involved now, to avoid dumping all the responsibility on the quality manager of MR.
So the management of it can be assigned but the TM cannot abdicate his responsibility of owning it.
In practice I have not noticed any difference however.

Exactly my point of view.