Costing and Pricing Procedures

[RosieA]

In the new company I'm with, there are numerous procedures related to pricing. EX: cost reductions, how to price items, and when to do price updates.

From the way they are written, that is, very simply and without a clear link to the quality management system, I'm not sure whether to include them in my ISO document matrix or not.

Certainly and ill managed cost reductions can hurt quality, but this work instruction is more about what is considered to be a cost reduction than how to manage them. Cost reductions have to go through the design release process, where there is a good method for controling and getting input on any possible problems.

Do others include pricing policies in their ISO doc matrix?

 

[ccochran]

Rosie,

As you know, few issues can affect customer satisfaction like billing and pricing. I would certainly include these procedures as part of your management system documentation. At my department of Georgia Tech, we have a Pricing Policy and it's treated just like any other document within our system. In fact, it's one of the most referenced documents we have. We'd be in rough shape if it wasn't controlled and maintained in a systamatic way.

Good luck,
Craig

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Craig Cochran
Center for International Standards & Quality
Georgia Institute of Technology
craig.cochran@edi.gatech.edu

 

[CarolX]

Hi Rosie,

I agree with what Craig said...pricing is definitly important to the customer.

Cost reduction can and should fall under continous improvement.

We view any procedure that affects product to fall under our ISO program. I also have procedures that may appear not to affect "product quality", but could affect customer satisfaction. One example is a work instruction for the purchasing department that involves order status and expediting of sheet metal from our suppliers, because late receipt of material can result in late delivery to the customer. Too early of a delivery doesn't affect the customer, but does interupt the cash flow.

Just a few thoughts,
CarolX

 

[RosieA]

Thanks for the insight, Carol. I agree on the expediting one, I would have included that too.

Let me ask about a couple of other policies that I'm not sure where to apply:

Where would you put a procedure on weather-related plant shut-downs? Or Hourly employye time off requests? Are they part of the quality system or not?

 

[RoxaneB]

Where would you put a procedure on weather-related plant shut-downs? Or Hourly employye time off requests? Are they part of the quality system or not?

All of our documentation is located in one central repository...our document control software package. It does not matter if it is corporate-related (e.g., how to use the company credit card, how to fill in an expense report), environment-related (e.g., spill clean-up, radiation procedure), or health/safety-related (e.g., security threat, evacuation plan).

Are they part of a quality system, per se? Probably not. But are they part of a management system? Most definately YES!

 

[CarolX]

Are they part of a quality system, per se? Probably not. But are they part of a management system? Most definately YES!

RC - I agree

Rosie,
I would throw those into your HR procedures.
We did that so we weren't running "dual" systems.
Carol