Help with updating procedures

[trucks79]

Hi can someone help please,
the company i work for has recently asked me to oversee the ISO standards 9001, 14001 and 45001 and all the procedures had my previous managers name on them

for example at the start of each one they have 4 boxes

Prepared by: his name dated May 2019
Reviewed by: his line managers name dated May 2019
Approved By: the company owners name dated May 2019
Process Owner: his name dated May 2019

My question is if i update the policy to say the process owner is now MY NAME and date it Feb 2022 is that the correct way to do it?

And do i then update the version number at the bottom to reflect the update of the document?

We have an audit coming up in May 2022 so i wanted to make sure all the paperwork was correct..

 

[John Broomfield]

trucks79,

As the System Manager you should not own all the processes specified by your documented procedures. Enable the participants to own their system instead of expecting them to keep you happy.

Each process in your process-based management system should owned the person who knows best how the process works well.

You may be the expert in auditing and removing root causes of potential/actual nonconformity and be the best person to own these processes.

You seem to have way too many people involved in approving your documented procedures. Can they be reviewed by the process team for accuracy (thereby earning process owner’s approval) and by the boss of the process owner?

John

 

[ED76]

What value does having a named process owner give? Our system states that revisions to documents should be prepared by someone in the same technical function as the previous author, this allows the person who knows the process best to take responsibility for it if the previous author is no longer with the company or has changed role.

Depending on how many procedures you have you are looking at a lot of updating by May for only this one, minor change. I would be inclined to update the procedure which sets out the format of your documents to remove the requirement for there to be a named document owner and have a written plan to remove it from each document when they are revised for another reason.

 

[AuditFan]

There are better ways of doing this, and (most importantly) to stop this from being repeated. Documents don't need all that stuff on them. I'd suggest that you revise your document control procedure and create a "Document Change Notice". Use this to record all the background, approvals, dates and other details of the change and remove this redundant into from the procedures.

 

[Mike S.]

Hi can someone help please,
the company i work for has recently asked me to oversee the ISO standards 9001, 14001 and 45001 and all the procedures had my previous managers name on them

for example at the start of each one they have 4 boxes

Prepared by: his name dated May 2019
Reviewed by: his line managers name dated May 2019
Approved By: the company owners name dated May 2019
Process Owner: his name dated May 2019

My question is if i update the policy to say the process owner is now MY NAME and date it Feb 2022 is that the correct way to do it?

And do i then update the version number at the bottom to reflect the update of the document?

We have an audit coming up in May 2022 so i wanted to make sure all the paperwork was correct..

As others have noted, you (or any single person) owning all the processes is probably a bad idea. I seriously doubt you own all the processes, nor should you.

What I do is make the process owner the TITLE of the actual process owner, i.e. Manufacturing Manager, Purchasing Manager, HR Manager, etc. and I as QM also approve it because I am responsible for QMS doc control and ensuring the document meets the requirements of the standard.

 

[AuditFan]

With respect, the OP's issue isn't about who "owns" what procedure. It's getting out from under a bureaucracy of names and approvals IN documents. The idea of "Process Ownership", while laudable, isn't specifically required by ISO 9001 and, might be a "bridge too far", when the burning question is the names on documents being incorrect. It likely feels like boiling the ocean to make those type of changes.

 

[Mike S.]

IMO a "document change notice" is itself added work and not an improvement over names and approvals on the documents.

The OP proposed changing the policy to make him the process owner and asked if we felt that was the correct way to do it. I suggested an alternative.

Who knows how many docs would be affected but if he is going to make a change, I'd suggest changing the rules so that if someone else is in his shoes in a year, they don't have to waste their time doing this again. If the procedure says "Joe Smith has to sign the work order" and Joe retires, the document is no longer correct. If it says "the production manager has to sign the work order" it doesn't matter how many different people hold that title.

 

[trucks79]

Thanks everyone for the replies i am very grateful so if i change the process owner of the documents like for example Finance Manager, HR Manager, Admin Manager, IT Manager ect ect that would be better?

Also if i make changes to the document at what point do i change the details at the start of the document (as shown below)? would i change the review date to the date i made the changes?

That is the part i am struggling with, on the footer it says revision number 1.3 so i understand that will become 1.4 and so on but at what point does the main document details at the beginning change?

Prepared by: his name dated May 2019
Reviewed by: his line managers name dated May 2019
Approved By: the company owners name dated May 2019
Process Owner: FINANCE MANAGER MAY 2022

 

[trucks79]

screengrab.png

• trucks79
• Feb 21, 2022

 

[AuditFan]

IMO a "document change notice" is itself added work and not an improvement over names and approvals on the documents

Strange, because design responsible organization usually use a parallel system called an ECN and I've never heard anyone complain that that's extra work and it keeps drawings/specs free from all kinds of information which doesn't need to be present IN the document - for the benefit of the user...