Please Review our Quality Policy Statement for content and compliance

[energy]

Quality Persons,
I know a great many of you make your living as auditors, consultants, etc., but I'm looking for a "freebie". After a contentious Steering Committee meeting reviewing 5 suggested Quality Policy statements to put in our QPM, the majority, (I was the lone dissenter) decided on this one: "energy's company is committed to maintaining a customer focused quality system that:

· Produces products and services that meet or exceed customer/regulatory requirements
· Is communicated from Top Management to all levels of the organization
· Continuously monitors and improves all aspects of our processes and procedures"

If you were auditing us, would you say it addresses the requirements for policy statements as shown in Q9001:2000 Section 5.3 a) thru e)?

I value the opinions of the people in this forum more than some of my co-workers. After all, some of these people do not care a lot about something so "trivial". Am I being paranoid or would this quality policy statement suffice?

fretting,

energy


[This message has been edited by energy (edited 07 June 2001).]

 

[jim543]

Having worked with our Management Team in several sessions to develop a Quality Policy that conforms to 5.3 of ISO 9001:2000, I believe the policy you have quoted is quite acceptable.

------------------
Jim543

 

[Al Dyer]

Energy:

Paraphrasing your quote:

"energy's company is committed to maintaining a customer focused quality system that:

· Produces products and services that meet or exceed customer/regulatory requirements
· Is communicated from Top Management to all levels of the organization
· Continuously monitors and improves all aspects of our processes and procedures"

------------------------------------------------
It looks fine, but some food for thought from a "QS" guy,

An auditor might ask:

How do you prove that your products and services "EXCEED" customer/regulatory requirements?

- How do you prove that you continuously monitor and improve "ALL" processes and procedures?

- Words like exceed, all, usually, sometimes, always etc... make me a little paranoid

Good luck,

ASD...

[This message has been edited by Al Dyer (edited 07 June 2001).]

 

[energy]

Al,
I understand the question. We could show during the "Contract Review" how the customer, quite often, upgrades their systems based on our inputs regarding water quality, and eventually their discharges. They will even agree to "add-on" costs associated with recommendations. After all, we are the "experts". The monitoring processes and product for improvement is more difficult to prove. That requires audit results, customer satisfaction data, rejection activity, etc..being plotted periodically to show improvement or deterioration.

thanks for the input!

energy

 

[Marc]

Have you read through: http://Elsmar.com/pdf_files/Quality_Policies.txt ?

Also - remember measureables.

-> Produces products and services that meet or exceed
-> customer/regulatory requirements

Your evidence that you comply is ....?

-> Continuously monitors and improves all aspects of our
-> processes and procedures

Please list and discuss your process measureables. Include your baseline(s), how you arrived at your baseline(s), and what you have set as goals. Do you have a time set to achieve those goals? Explain how you monitor and improve your procedures.

-> Is communicated from Top Management to all levels of the
-> organization

No brainer. No problem.

*********************

Just some thoughts...

 

[Carl]

Energy,

I think it is fine, however,

· Produces products and services that meet or exceed customer/regulatory requirements

-Considering you say meet OR exceed, I think you are covered.

· Is communicated from Top Management to all levels of the organization

-A documented management review with Quality Policy cards distributed to all employees by management and posted at the time clock should cover this

· Continuously monitors and improves all aspects of our processes and procedures"

-This one is tricky, I agree with Al above, why not just stick with the verbage from the standard and say you are committed to continually improving the effectiveness of your quality management system?

Don't forget 5.3 e) I include a reference on the Management review agenda to cover this.

Just a hint to all, to insure full compliance, I have always regurgetated the ISO standard as VERBATIM as possible without infringing any copyright laws as the core of my quality manuals. I add to, but I am careful not to subtract from, the content. There is no registrar on earth that can win the argument that I do not have documentation to support each section of the standard. As long as I have the supporting evidence for each statement in my quality manual, I am golden. I have used this 3 times with complete success.

Regards,

Carl-

 

[energy]

Al, Marc, Carl,

Thanks. your comments reflect the concern that I had when I originally posted. In our effort to make the statement user friendly, my peers were attempting to cover all in as short a statement as possible. We will revisit this issue and, thanks to the input, make some minor (not really minor) changes to accomplish the goals of brevity as well as content.

energy

 

[E Wall]

I have to echo Al's concerns (no need to rewrite them). But I also think visuals are better for communication (short & long term memory), so whatever you end up with you may consider how it will be presented.

Our company uses a 'pie' format (not exploded). The segregated sections are main headers of what we identify as the key components to a successful business, and for each section is a (pardon if I get the expression wrong) 'cartoon like speak box' that goes into more detail for the subject.

Hope the picture I tried to paint made sense. I can send you a copy (excel file) if you'd like, just e-mail me and I'll reply with the file.

 

[energy]

Ewall,Carl,Marc,Al, Jim
Were your ears ringing? I printed all the responses to this topic and carried them off to our Steering Committee meeting today. They were scrutinized by the team and were very informative. Comments coming from "professionals" was received very well. We have reached a consensus and will have a statement soon. I may have stumbled onto something here. When I go into battle, there can be a silent army in my folder. Thanks a lot.

energy

 

[Al Dyer]

Energy,

Thanks for the post. It's always good to read that the Cove is a good forum for helping all of us. I too have used posts in certain situations and ,like you, they have given me the ammunition I occasionally need to fight the battles.

ASD...