Minor Nonconformity for Lack of Job Descriptions in ISO 9001

[Big Jim]

Hi

Thanks all for your comments as i also want to know about Minor Nonconformity for Lack of Job Descriptions in ISO 9001.Thanks for sharing your valuable comments.


Thank you

In a nutshell, the standard requires that you determine the competencies that people that function in your organization. That would include anyone that has direct or indirect involvement with product (pretty much everyone). You may choose to use job descriptions to define those competencies, or you may choose another method such a simply of list of the needed competencies.

Then you need to show how those competencies were acquired. That could be from prior experience, education, skills acquired, or training. It could also be from training or education acquired since hire.

Lastly, you need to keep records of all this.

The standard is not prescriptive in telling you how to do any of this, just that it needs to be done.

 

[TPMB4]

If you have a matrix of skills for shop floor (or competencies) then is it that much work to create a version for the competencies for the management roles? I'm only wondering as I'm interested as to what the competencies that a Quality Manager or Quality Engineer needs.

I'm of course reading the standard as ther competencies of QA/QM/QE would be needed since those roles have an impact on the quality of products going out to customers (or they should do if they've got the needed competencies).

I'd quite like to see what competencies I should have and if I have them!! I never got a job description for this role I now have. Think of it as gap analysis on myself. Anyone got a list of competencies for this sort of role??

Back to OP - not sure if anyone has said this before as there has been a lot of traffic on here since I last looked in to this thread, but you have to have some kind of a good relationship with your CB I think. By this I don't mean a cosy relationship that always gets you recertified (dinner date auditing if you like). I'm talking about a professional relationship where you can discuss the audit report and not so much change it but seek clarification or further explanation if there is some inaccuracy or doubt in the report.

I am new to this Quality role but all the 3rd party audit reports (from our CB auditor) that I've seen seem to be as simple as they can be with kind of just statements of findings. This OP seems to have an auditor that opinionates what he wants from a QMS. Am I being a bit simplistic here or just plain wrong?

 

[metsmark]

Re: Nonconformity for lack of job descriptions in ISO 9001

sliebman,

Then you have to write a letter to the Registrar providing the facts and making it clear that you seek an auditor who reports nonconformity so each statement includes a description of:

A. The applicable requirement
B. The evidence of not meeting the requirement
C. The nature of the nonconformity

Auditors also seek agreement of any nonconformity. They listen to the auditee and include in the Audit Report the reasons the auditee had expressed for not agreeing A, B and/or C of the nonconformity statement.

Accept no advice from your auditor. No more time wasting and no more fluff. I blame the notion of value-adding auditing for this. Instead of adding value by reporting well-crafted nonconformity statements; the auditor thought it meant making suggestions. In a way I feel sorry for the confused auditor.

John

Accept no advice from your auditor. No more time wasting and no more fluff. I blame the notion of value-adding auditing for this. Instead of adding value by reporting well-crafted nonconformity statements; the auditor thought it meant making suggestions. In a way I feel sorry for the confused auditor.

 

[metsmark]

Re: Nonconformity for lack of job descriptions in ISO 9001

Accept no advice from your auditor? How do you view opportunities for improvement?

 

[John Broomfield]

Re: Nonconformity for lack of job descriptions in ISO 9001

Accept no advice from your auditor? How do you view opportunities for improvement?

metsmark,

Thanks for asking.

Before issuing an OFI the auditor should ask why the system had failed the organization in that it did not indicate the need for improvement.

The auditor may discover evidence of the system weakness that prompted the need for an OFI. The weakness may not have amounted to an obvious nonconformity but the system had not prompted the auditee to take improvement action. This is the system nonconformity.

The clause will depend on the evidence and nature of the system weakness but I'd be happy to convert any OFI into a legitimate nonconformity statement.

Generally, the OFIs I see perpetuate system weaknesses that would have been strengthened had the auditor requested corrective action instead.

But auditees like OFIs because they still fear nonconformity. That is the problem we still have to dissolve. After all, the only bad nonconformity is the one we do not know about.

Others may argue this does not matter provided the auditee takes action, but I'll wager that most OFIs go in the round file.

John

 

[metsmark]

Re: Nonconformity for lack of job descriptions in ISO 9001

Thank you for the insight John.
I like to treat an OFI as a nonconformity, just for the sake of strengthening our QMS. Upper management, not so much!
If it's not major/minor they'd just as soon disregaurd it.

 

[kgott]

Re: Nonconformity for lack of job descriptions in ISO 9001

The standard requires that responsibility and authorities related to processes are defined.

This usually means that you need to describe who does and can do what for each process.

Interesting. Does this not mean that one can fulfill this requirement by describing what a given job role does at each step in a flow chart and there by make documented job descriptions un-necessary?

 

[Marcelo]

Interesting. Does this not mean that one can fulfill this requirement by describing what a given job role does at each step in a flow chart and there by make documented job descriptions un-necessary?

Sure. That?s exactly the idea.

As I mentioned somewhere else, job descritptions are more of a RH tool related to a function.

The standards are process-based, thus not related to any function or department, only to the processes, activities inside each process, and who perform them.

So unless they are required by a process defined by the organization, I do not see why they are needed.

Obviously a lot of auditors are still expecting job descriptions or organizational charts, but this does mean that it?s really what the standards require

 

[armani]

OK...OK...no job descriptions!
I understand ur point....but what if job descriptions are mandatory being a legal requirement (e.g. imposed by Labour Code)?
Should I ask for them??
Or, better, should I ignore the fact they do not exist, if organization shows me another way of defining roles etc...? But, in that case, that means ignoring legal requirements....

 

[Marcelo]

OK...OK...no job descriptions!
I understand ur point....but what if job descriptions are mandatory being a legal requirement (e.g. imposed by Labour Code)?
Should I ask for them??
Or, better, should I ignore the fact they do not exist, if organization shows me another way of defining roles etc...? But, in that case, that means ignoring legal requirements....

If we are still talking about the specific requirement of the standard for competency (6.2.1 as mentioned by OP), if the organization can show how it fulfills the requirement without using a job description, that would be fine. The need to fulfill legal requirements is another requirement of the standard, not 6.2.1. You should not mix different requirement (meaning, implying that a jog description would fulfill 6.2.1 because legal requirements require them).