Exclusion of company division?

[Ray]

Our organization has 3 divisions, each selling different product lines and each servicing what we sell. Our President would like me to exclude one of the divisions out of the scope of our quality system even though all divisions sell and service the same customer base.
Does anyone have any ideas about how to go about drafting the exclusion part of 9K2K: (4.2.2) or is the President asking his Quality Manager to do something that is morally not right?

 

[Davey]

did this once...

I worked at a company with 4 divisions... only three were included in the scope of the quality system. The fourth division was newly acquired, was in difficulty financially and simply was not in a position to implement a quality system at that time.

All this was documented and put in front of the auditor. The were no objections whatsoever.

Davey.

 

[energy]

Why not

In a previous life, we intended to exclude a complete product line that was strictly low end commercial product that would not get the controls that other more delicate product would. Our consultant said it was no problem. I believe that it would have been excluded in the scope. However, we never found out because the division was closed down due to lack of interest!
Jim Wade is close to what would have happened. We would have touted ISO Registration to ALL our customers (deception) because nobody but us would really know the difference.
I also think the owner has the absolute right to exclude a division or product from the scope of the registration without causing the Quality Manager to wonder whether or not he/she can sleep at night.

 

[Claes Gefvenberg]

Re: Why not

energy said:
---X---
I also think the owner has the absolute right to exclude a division or product from the scope of the registration without causing the Quality Manager to wonder whether or not he/she can sleep at night.

Yes I agree. As the rest of you have said there can be several fully acceptable reasons. Hopefully he knows what he's doing, but it would be nice to know the reason.

/Claes

 

[mike101338]

I too work for a company with 4 divisions. WE chose to exclude 2 of the divisions from our QMS. Place it into the scope of of your QMS. Our first page in the policy manual states what divisions are covered and which are excluded. It is also noted on the registration certificate which divisions are excluded.

On a side note, I am not happy about our companies decision to exclude 2 parts of our business. Once the QMS is implemented and you are able to demonstrate the benefits to upper management you might be able to convince them of the need to include the remainder of your company into the QMS. Our company has gone from 1 to 2 divisions. I am optimistic for the third division, only they are at another location so It might be a little more dificult to convince their management.

Mike

 

[Ray]

reply to all

Thanks for all the comments.
Our President thinks that adding the division to the QMS would add overhead, create expense, add no value to customer service etc...in his words he'd rather sell the division then drag them thru an ISO process....
As far as indicating the exclusion in the scope of the QMS...yes I will do that as I agree with everyone's comments.
My only concern is in the interpretation of the standard "4.2.2.a) a scope of the quality managment system, including details of and justification for any exclusions"...
To what extent is "justification". Is this a call facilitated by the judgement of the auditor? If so, what rules do auditors use in making this judgement?

 

[KenS]

Don't call it an exclusion, in your scope refer to divisions 1 and 2, don't mention division 3.

 

[Angela-2007]

Our scope has an exclusion. It has never caused any issues. We do not pass off our certificate to meet both. We let our customers know what product is certified. Our reason were due to the Big three, we certified the product that they buy.

Angela

 

[Graeme]

Be Specific

I work with an organization where only one department of one division of the company is registered to ISO 9001:2000. (This is a workgroup of 9 people, out of more than 700,000 worldwide.) We are the only department that does the work included in the scope (calibration of electronic test and measuring instruments). We also specify the name of the registered organization tightly to exclude everything else -- "Department XXX (Electronic Calibration Laboratory), Big Company, Location City Georgia USA". The QM also specifies that everything outside our four walls is "the rest of the company" and is a supplier and/or a customer. The registrar had no problem with it.