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Eric Edstrom
ISO 9001-2008 Purchasing controls – Issuing POs Without Specific Approvals
I’m the Quality Manager of a small metal fabrications job shop. We have from around 30 to 50 employees based on workload. We do the full range of operations from laser cutting, stamping, forming, welding/assembly, powder coating through local delivery. The company has been in business for over 45 years.
We are creating a QMS that will eventually audited and certified to the ISO 9001-2008 standard, with Clause 7.3 Design and Development exempted, as we work from customer specs only.
There is no purchasing agent here. The President and three engineers/operational group managers do all the buying. We use a dedicated ERP tool that allows us to port from accepted quotes to purchase orders, which are then emailed directly from the ERP tool. No requisitions, no system for approvals. For the time being we plan to keep it this way. Of course, once we get the ISO cert there are many doors that will open for us, and we believe we can increase our customer base and grow the company. And a purchasing agent would be part of that growth.
It’s my belief that we can demonstrate the requisite level of control through a Signatures Authority policy, where limits are assigned for each of the purchasers, except the President, of course. The policy would be issued by the President and require acknowledgement by the purchasers through sign-off and date.
Anyone have any thoughts or opinions on this? I have considerable experience as an internal auditor, and have been through many external audits. But I’ve never seen this situation before, so I’m flying blind here.
Thanks in advance for any insights you may have.
Eric
I’m the Quality Manager of a small metal fabrications job shop. We have from around 30 to 50 employees based on workload. We do the full range of operations from laser cutting, stamping, forming, welding/assembly, powder coating through local delivery. The company has been in business for over 45 years.
We are creating a QMS that will eventually audited and certified to the ISO 9001-2008 standard, with Clause 7.3 Design and Development exempted, as we work from customer specs only.
There is no purchasing agent here. The President and three engineers/operational group managers do all the buying. We use a dedicated ERP tool that allows us to port from accepted quotes to purchase orders, which are then emailed directly from the ERP tool. No requisitions, no system for approvals. For the time being we plan to keep it this way. Of course, once we get the ISO cert there are many doors that will open for us, and we believe we can increase our customer base and grow the company. And a purchasing agent would be part of that growth.
It’s my belief that we can demonstrate the requisite level of control through a Signatures Authority policy, where limits are assigned for each of the purchasers, except the President, of course. The policy would be issued by the President and require acknowledgement by the purchasers through sign-off and date.
Anyone have any thoughts or opinions on this? I have considerable experience as an internal auditor, and have been through many external audits. But I’ve never seen this situation before, so I’m flying blind here.
Thanks in advance for any insights you may have.
Eric