Management Review Meetings - Auditor issued an Area of Concern regarding our method

[brahmaiah]

Re: Management Review Meetings - Auditor issued an Area of Concern regarding our meth

Are you implying that the owner of a business is too busy to be involved in leading it on a day-to-day basis? What are you suggesting that the owner should be doing?

Is there something wrong with looking at current issues on a regular basis? Does the focus always have to be on the whole year? And why can't the trends for a whole year be reviewed and updated on a regular basis?

I find your views to be opinionated, prescriptive, and impractical. I also believe they are inconsistent with both the requirements of ISO 9001 and the principles that the standard is based on.

Don't you think that this weekly MRM business looks strange?.Can we have a fair estimate of what is the % of organizations which conduct weekly MRMs?
Why are we making a prestige issue of this?
V.J.Brahmaiah

 

[amanbhai]

Re: Management Review Meetings - Auditor issued an Area of Concern regarding our meth

One can not prescribe the organization about their frequency of Management review. I have been in the organization where we used to meet every alternate mondays, and here I am in an organization where we have 3 Management reviews every year. The frequency, and the way of reviewing etc etc ..things differ from one organization to another. One can be prescriptive also since this ISO 9001 is being used by many different nature of organizations so therefore it is not prudent to do so.

 

[howste]

Re: Management Review Meetings - Auditor issued an Area of Concern regarding our meth

Don't you think that this weekly MRM business looks strange?

No. If an organization finds that the frequency works for them, why does it matter if an outsider thinks it "looks strange" anyway. Each item listed is actually reviewed monthly. In my opinion this is much, much, much better than only looking at the information once a year as the auditor suggests. A year after is too late to react to something that happened within the business.

Can we have a fair estimate of what is the % of organizations which conduct weekly MRMs?

How is this relevant? ISO 9001 invites us to develop a system that meets our organizational needs and helps us to meet our objectives. It's a one-size-fits-one approach. Because an organization chooses to do something differently than others doesn't make them wrong.

Why are we making a prestige issue of this?
V.J.Brahmaiah

I don't think I'm making a "prestige issue" of this. I'm expressing a difference of opinion, and attempting to present evidence to back up my views. I'm still waiting for objective evidence to support your opinions.

"On the outset your manual looks OK. But it is not OK from the point of normal practice." Subjective.
1)It is highly improbable tha the owner finds time every week to attend the MRM. Subjective.
2)Every week your focus will be on the current issues and not concerning the performance during the whole year. How do you know this? Subjective.
3)However you try you cannot inject the seriousness required in an MRM into a weekly meeting. How do you know this? Subjective.

 

[brahmaiah]

Re: Management Review Meetings - Auditor issued an Area of Concern regarding our meth

No. If an organization finds that the frequency works for them, why does it matter if an outsider thinks it "looks strange" anyway. Each item listed is actually reviewed monthly. In my opinion this is much, much, much better than only looking at the information once a year as the auditor suggests. A year after is too late to react to something that happened within the business.

How is this relevant? ISO 9001 invites us to develop a system that meets our organizational needs and helps us to meet our objectives. It's a one-size-fits-one approach. Because an organization chooses to do something differently than others doesn't make them wrong.

I don't think I'm making a "prestige issue" of this. I'm expressing a difference of opinion, and attempting to present evidence to back up my views. I'm still waiting for objective evidence to support your opinions.

"On the outset your manual looks OK. But it is not OK from the point of normal practice." Subjective.
1)It is highly improbable tha the owner finds time every week to attend the MRM. Subjective.
2)Every week your focus will be on the current issues and not concerning the performance during the whole year. How do you know this? Subjective.
3)However you try you cannot inject the seriousness required in an MRM into a weekly meeting. How do you know this? Subjective.

Thank you for a patient discussion.
You can have your own way and I, mine.It is a matter of perseption.
V.J.Brahmaiah

 

[qcman012856]

Re: Management Review Meetings - Auditor issued an Area of Concern regarding our meth

Follow up. The assumption that it is "highly improbable" that the owner attends all of the MRM meetings is just that, an assumption. We are a small electronics contract manufacturer (50 employees). The owner not only attends ALL meetings but is also an active participant. The Plant Manager chairs the meetings. The bottom line seems to be that the auditor who wrote an AOC on our MRM process has a problem with unconventional methods to comply with the standard. I am coming to the conclusion that we need a different auditor for our next surveillance audit.

 

[Jim Wynne]

Re: Management Review Meetings - Auditor issued an Area of Concern regarding our meth

Thank you for a patient discussion.
You can have your own way and I, mine.It is a matter of perseption.
V.J.Brahmaiah

The whole idea behind having an international standard is to help to eliminate matters of perception. Unless you can find justification for your decisions in the standard, subjectivity rules and there will be chaos.

 

[SteelMaiden]

Re: Management Review Meetings - Auditor issued an Area of Concern regarding our meth

Follow up. The assumption that it is "highly improbable" that the owner attends all of the MRM meetings is just that, an assumption. We are a small electronics contract manufacturer (50 employees). The owner not only attends ALL meetings but is also an active participant. The Plant Manager chairs the meetings. The bottom line seems to be that the auditor who wrote an AOC on our MRM process has a problem with unconventional methods to comply with the standard. I am coming to the conclusion that we need a different auditor for our next surveillance audit.

You also need to talk to your registrar when there are problems like this, as they need to make sure that their auditors are all "calibrated" to the same standard (so to speak).

 

[Jim Wynne]

Re: Management Review Meetings - Auditor issued an Area of Concern regarding our meth

You also need to talk to your registrar when there are problems like this, as they need to make sure that their auditors are all "calibrated" to the same standard (so to speak).

No need for the "so to speak" qualifier; it's a good example of calibration, which is comparing a measuring device (an auditor) against a standard.

 

[Randy]

Re: Management Review Meetings - Auditor issued an Area of Concern regarding our meth

Well now girls I don't think we have the whole story yet....

Who are the members of Top management?

What is the necessary or required quorum for an official or valid MR to take place?

It looks like the organization has created their own time frame for MRM to take place in their manual and their requirement now supercedes 9001. We need to know memebership of TM and the "who" must be involved in MRM at a minimum. A lack of information here could provide an indication of weakness in meeting 4.2.1 (d)

 

[Groo3]

Re: Management Review Meetings - Auditor issued an Area of Concern regarding our meth

Where is the "shall" for a meeting girlfriends? You're auditor can "expect" until his fanny falls off.

A review can be performed without a meeting

For years, in the early days of our registration, it was hard to even get all of our top managers to sit down in one room at the same time so we did some of our reviews without an official meeting. We didn't do this all the time mind you, but it did happen on several occasions. Our then Quality Manager would go around to each of the top managers for a one-on-one session and review the MR inputs with each, get their feedback, then summarize the output in the form of minutes and action items that would then be routed to all our top managers for their agreement (our QM would get each top manager to sign off on (initial and date) the minutes and action items to acknowledge the MR). Our registrar never had a problem with that...

I am coming to the conclusion that we need a different auditor for our next surveillance audit.

I would make it a point to request that from your registrar... Likewise, if you had an auditor that you felt added value to the audit process, I would recommend you make a special request to have them back for follow-up audits. From dealing with our registrar, they will humor us when they can; they also like to mix it up a little from time to time to ensure an objective audit. Do you review the external auditors?

No. If an organization finds that the frequency works for them, why does it matter if an outsider thinks it "looks strange" anyway. Each item listed is actually reviewed monthly. In my opinion this is much, much, much better than only looking at the information once a year as the auditor suggests. A year after is too late to react to something that happened within the business.

Your business decides the frequency that works best for your business. In my opinion, the only pieces I see missing are the points Randy mentioned with defining a quorum and defining "Top Management"...