ISO 9001:2105 - Are OFI or Corrective actions required?

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Not sure if I should start a new thread, but posted here as context of this thread helps understand the question...

I'm pushing for managers to own their own area. Historically when things go wrong many managers would say this is a quality issue and wash their hands and walk away. We've started having monthly quality meetings where we discuss issues, disposition them, and assign an accountable manager. In each meeting we're having accountable managers report on progress. This approach is working really well, if the "lazy" managers don't take action it becomes pretty obvious to the other managers who's pulling their weight and who's slacking off.

One of the new issues is we have a high rate of failure on a couple parts from the same vendor, so we agreed to disposition the issue as requiringing root cause and corrective actions(trend exists). The purchasing manager was made accountable for the CAR by the management team. As the quality manager would you recommend I reach out to the supplier explaining what's going on and that we require a corrective action / root cause analysis, or should the purchasing manager do this? I ask as I want to be fair, I don't want to dump things someone else unfairly, but also don't want to regress and become the doormat of several managers again.

 

[John Broomfield]

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Of course the managers are responsible for making sure their teams have what they need to understand and fulfill the requirements. You can help them do this by asking the chief exec to remind them of their responsibilities.

You may facilitate this by ensuring the organizational management system as a whole is helping your colleagues to understand and fulfill customer requirements.

For any manager to deny responsibility for quality should be a sacking offense, hopefully your chief exec agrees.

John

 

[Ninja]

IMO (agreeing with John),

Process owners own their processes...period.

Quality (gonna quote John here):

facilitate(s) this by ensuring the organizational management system as a whole is helping your colleagues to...fulfill customer requirements.

Quality helps them...but they own both the problem and the solution.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

As the quality manager would you recommend I reach out to the supplier explaining what's going on and that we require a corrective action / root cause analysis, or should the purchasing manager do this?

As you want to work collaboratively with the supplier, it is critical they understand the problem at hand. If the issue is technical beyond the purchasing manager’s understanding, it seems to me that you should communicate with the supplier so, once again, they at least understand what the problem is. The way I see it, there is no point in having the purchasing person playing middlemen in the communication.

 

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Thanks everyone I really appreciate all the feedback. It's really helpful, and kind of exciting as a lot of things are starting to click for me. I've worked at this company for a long time (>15 years) and we have a lot of elephants in the room no one wants to talk about that I'm very well aware of. As a new quality manager, I'm being given the opportunity to get our managers talking about these elephants. Rather than defensiveness and fighting(which I think people feared and why they didn't talk about the elephant in the room), I'm getting a lot of very positive feedback from other managers for bringing these long standing problems to light so we can all work together to solve them. The opinion of quality and ISO at our company has been that it is silly bureaucracy and I think little by little people are starting to change their opinions...

Good stuff. Thanks!

 

[Ninja]

The opinion of quality and ISO at our company has been that it is silly bureaucracy and I think little by little people are starting to change their opinions...

Sounds like you're already on your way (good job)...but just to say it out loud:

Quality can easily be silly bureaucracy, and the opinion that it is so may be quite valid.
As you continue your work...one of your main tasks is to make sure that it is NOT silly...and that it actually helps people do their jobs well/better/easier.
That's when the opinions can change.
No sane person is going to look at a silly bureaucracy and see it in a favorable light. Work to make sure your QMS is not that.