Authorities of Quality Manager

[ROOTS]

Hi,

Can anybody give some examples for Authorities of Quality Manager and Management Representative as per IATF guidelines?

Thanks
Roots

 

[John C. Abnet]

Hi,

Can anybody give some examples for Authorities of Quality Manager and Management Representative as per IATF guidelines?

Thanks
Roots

Good day @ROOTS ;
Can you please define what "IATF guidelines" you are referring to?

(i.e. IATF does not provide any guidelines or requirements specific to "Quality Manager" nor "Management Representative". In fact, the current version no longer requires/speaks to "Management Representative".

Be well.

 

[malasuerte]

As per above, ISO/IATF does not define any role. ISO and IATF say that your organization's top management is supposed to assign personnel with responsibility and authority for certain things (all of 5.3). They could conceivably say that the Quality Manager is responsible for everything, or they could spread everything out among many people.

 

[Jeffery]

Typically the Quality Manager is responsible for the entire Quality Management System and all QC personnel, as well as compliance to requirements from customers, regulating bodies, etc. As for the actual "authority" of the Quality Manager, that should be determined by company management, and should be noted in a formal job description. The Quality Manager should have the authority to reject and quarantine product, shut down production processes when necessary, implement containment actions, require inputs from other departments and disciplines, etc. Unfortunately as anyone in "quality" knows, all sorts of things can get assigned to the quality department that really should not be. Most times the Quality Manager reports to the Plant Manager, which in my view can result in a conflict of interest at times (been there...done that).

 

[Randy]

They can have any authority you want, it's nobody else's business. Just remember there's a ton of difference between authority, responsibility and accountability so get your definitions and everything else worked out and in line.

 

[knightarmourus]

ISO/IATF defines complete organization management rules for general manager or plant manager (depends organization) how they manage the company. All companies assign responsibility for the execution of the quality management system to the quality manager without general manager / plant manager authority. So a funny and sad drama continues to be played.

 

[Jeffery]

Your absolutely right knightarmourus. The Quality Manager is sometimes assigned responsibility for things where direct authority is not given, nothing more fun than being accountable for something you can't control. Years ago when I worked in automotive, we were a new plant in start-up mode. We had set up a decent Layered Process Audit system (LPA) as far as documentation, frequencies, and Who & What. Per the CQI-8 Guidelines the LPA process is managed by Operations - not Quality. So I got with our new Operations Manager and brought him up to speed on the LPA system, and said that he and his team have responsibility to implement, maintain, and revise the system as needed. He said he was not very familiar with audits and felt it was a "quality thing" since it had the word "audit" in the title. He then went to the Plant Manager and pleaded his case and got the LPA's assigned to the Quality Department. I met with the Plant Manager and reviewed CQI-8 and showed him why this was operation's system to manage...he didn't care and said it's reassigned to Quality...I gave up at that point.