Overhaul QMS or start over? How do you decide?

[Gary E MacLean]

Michelle

Attached is an example of the "Document List" I mentioned in a respnse to your dillema yesterday. It's just an example. Take a look and see if you can figure it out. I have also attached what I refer to as a level three document that controls that document list.

Do with it as you please. It has worked extremely well for over 15 years now in a variety of different organizations.

Let me know

GMAC49

 

[MichelleD]

Well said Wes, plain and simple - very understandable.

And Michelle, about all the "additional" duties and/or titles? Get used to it - your in Quality now. We are notoriously the "go-to" group. Everything that noone else understands ends up in "Quality." that's just how it is.

GMAC49

Anyone heard of the Blue Ocean Strategy? That's the group I'm in. Blue Ocean Innovation Planning Team. This is the 1st place that I've worked at that doesn't have an overall "Quality Department". Each area has their own quality inspectors but that's about it. But you're right....I've worked in a many of Quality Departments and we have a sign hanging around our neck that says "and other duties as assigned."

 

[MichelleD]

Not entirely... You have a formidable task ahead of you, and it will require a lot of energy. Getting stuck in everyday tasks is liable to rob you of the energy you seem to have. Could you "outsource" this to someone else? Like: Who is performing the calibration anyway? The same thing goes for many of those "minor" tasks: Combine them, and you have a major time thief on your hands.

/Claes

I'm working on that now. But I think what is happening is that anything in past that has needed to be "controlled" was given to the ISO Coordinator for safe keeping. I also have the originals of all the forms that have been revised in the last few years. I'm just thankful I don't have all the training records.

 

[GStough]

... I'm just thankful I don't have all the training records.

Shhhh....don't say that too loudly or they might just magically appear on your desk one day claiming it as their "new" home!

 

[MichelleD]

Shhhh....don't say that too loudly or they might just magically appear on your desk one day claiming it as their "new" home!

:mg:You're right...I'm looking over my shoulder now. We live in cubicle world (like Dilbert). Someone might have read my post.

 

[Wes Bucey]

Anyone heard of the Blue Ocean Strategy? That's the group I'm in. Blue Ocean Innovation Planning Team. This is the 1st place that I've worked at that doesn't have an overall "Quality Department". Each area has their own quality inspectors but that's about it. But you're right....I've worked in a many of Quality Departments and we have a sign hanging around our neck that says "and other duties as assigned."

Yep! Been there, done that.

• BOS frameworks and tools include: strategy canvas, value curve, four actions framework, six paths, buyer experience cycle, buyer utility map, and blue ocean idea index.
• These frameworks and tools are designed to be visual in order to not only effectively build the collective wisdom of the company but also to effectively execute through easy communication.
• BOS covers both strategy formulation and strategy execution.
• The three key conceptual building blocks of BOS are: value innovation, tipping point leadership, and fair process.

My thought - lot of gobblespeak for poor rehash of Deming (adding detested "slogan and catch phrases") and another cute phrase once current - "niche markets and marketing."

Sounds to me, Michelle, as if folks in charge have perverted an essentially workable theory into some horrible monster.

Jim Wynne would probably have a field day with the convoluted sentence structure employed by the authors - (it seems to me sort of like Randy's wildebeest)

My own theory is that a dispassionate observer holding your organization up to the BOS model would find lots of gaps.

Situations such as yours would probably catch the label "flavor of the month" from many jaded Quality practitioners. That doesn't make it all bad, just another complication to handle in making the organization more efficient and profitable.

 

[Jim Wynne]

Jim Wynne would probably have a field day with the convoluted sentence structure employed by the authors - (it seems to me sort of like Randy's wildebeest)

It seems to me that there's one letter too many in "BOS."

 

[Wes Bucey]

It seems to me that there's one letter too many in "BOS."

O? Really? Are you just being nice today?

 

[MichelleD]

It seems to me that there's one letter too many in "BOS."

You guys are killing me. I almost spit coke all over my desk when I saw this one (especially when I was thinking the same thing this morning.) When they talk all I hear is blah, blah, blah, strategy, blah, blah, blah, competitive advantage, blah, blah, blah, global, blah blah blah.

 

[MichelleD]

In theory, I understand as a business model what they are wanting to do with BOS and Six Sigma. And they don't call it Six Sigma. Here it is TDR (Tear down and Redesign) - Same thing. But what I need them to understand is that Six Sigma (and BOS) should not and does not replace have a good Business Management System in place. They are different concepts but if done right they can be an advantage to each other.