Process Approach Challenge - Please Define what the 'Process Approach' is

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Jim Wynne

Staff member
Admin
#12
Like Gertrude Stein's famous rose, process is a process is a... We all know what a process is, I think; the definition isn't in dispute. Not so for process approach, which is a rather murky idea that's related to the concept of "systems thinking." The consultant and author Allan Sayle claims credit for the idea, saying that he developed it in the 1970s. I have no evidence to dispute his claim, but I think the genesis goes back even further, and perhaps Sayle was the first to elucidate the idea in a general business setting and gave the idea the name we're talking about today.

The idea, as I see it, is not necessarily antithetical to an element-by-element ISO 9001 documentation system, as has been contended. Instead, I think the purpose is to overcome the "silo" effect, wherein departments and their disparate priorities have a negative effect on having smooth, uninterrupted processes.

As an example from my own experience with an OEM (product is irrelevant), when a design was transferred to manufacturing and found to have bugs, it was often difficult to get the design authority's attention in addressing the problems because as soon as the design was released, he had a new set of priorities for a new design effort. As the familiar biblical adage goes, no man can serve two masters, and if the design engineer were faced with a choice of honoring the priorities set by his own managers or dropping everything in honor of the manufacturing engineer's needs, the outcome would be predictable. The idea of conflicting priorities travels along the entire "product realization" path--at the end, for example, we might have a shipping guy who's been told, in no uncertain terms, that he cannot ship a product until some sort of special packaging is available, while he's simultaneously being dunned by a customer service person who says the product MUST SHIP TODAY!!!

This sort of thing, which happens every day in manufacturing, is clearly the result of poor (or nonexistent) leadership. If the "top management" in a company allows the coexistence of clearly conflicting priorities among her department managers, no one below that level will be able to do anything about it. It follows that if such a scheme of conflicting priorities is in place, "systems thinking" goes out the window, never to be heard from again.

In order to implement a process approach, all of the disparate elements that combine to produce a product or service must be coordinated such that a smooth continuum of effort exists across department boundaries. This is what the standard refers to when it talks about processes and their interactions. If such a continuum does exist, it does so irrespective of documentation, the standard and CB auditors who want to "promote" things but don't understand what they want to promote.

I don't know of a way to completely mitigate against incompetence at the top level of management, and the standard shouldn't be expected to perform miracles. No one below the top level can successfully implement a process approach (or anything else for that matter) unless given responsibility and authority to do so. Good luck with that, as they say.
 
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D

DrM2u

#13
OK - Let me throw this in. It's what sorta gets me when I hear 'process approach'. Years ago when I was in college my major was biology with chemistry and anthropology as minors. Everything is a system. I'm not a business person by education. It just sorta happened.
(...)
:agree:Marc, I could not agree with you more with everything you have said!!! The whole 'process approach' get me too. There is nothing new about thinking in terms of systems and processes and the thought can be applied to everyting, like you have referenced! I have been auditing processes since back in the days when QS-9000 was around, simply because it made sense to me. Of course, I had to show that each element was covered in the audit but I was too lazy to go back and forth to audit each element individually.

Like I previously stated, IMHO the so-called 'process approach' is whether or not the business is regarded by its stakeholders, management, employees and auditors as a system of processes. For that matter, we might as well call it 'systemic approach'. An auditor who audits a system has no choice but to audit the processes within the system, along with the other components. Are we not saying the same thing here?

So, IMHO:
- the 'process approach' is how the business is regarded by someone (like a state of mind or way of thinking)
- 'promoting a process approach' means directing/stearing/guiding/coaching someone to look at the business as a system of processes, manpower, materials, methods, measurements, equipment, environment, etc.

But, like you said, how can someone promote something they don't understand or is not defined for them, not to mention auditing it?!?
 
D

DrM2u

#14
This sort of thing, which happens every day in manufacturing, is clearly the result of poor (or nonexistent) leadership. If the "top management" in a company allows the coexistence of clearly conflicting priorities among her department managers, no one below that level will be able to do anything about it. It follows that if such a scheme of conflicting priorities is in place, "systems thinking" goes out the window, never to be heard from again.
:thanx: Thank you! I think that you have hit the nail in the head!:agree:
 

Helmut Jilling

Auditor / Consultant
#15
As would Yogi Berra. Marc I think you have brought some much needed clarity to the process vs element discussion. I do not believe there are any substantial differences between the two.
Significant differences - the element approach stopped at the edge of the element, and said, "the rest is someone else's responsibility. I don't know anything about the rest." Like a little kid who was not allowed to go beyond the edge of the street. He never sees the rest of the neighborhood. The process approach looks at the whole system, the series of activities to the final result, and considers what role each process plays in that outcome.

I think what you are noticing, is the many comments that many of us were applying a process approach to our systems, back before ISO mandated it. During the QS element days. That I would agree with. many of us had a bigger picture, process type thinking.

PS: my paraphrase of the official ISO process approach definition:

A simpler definition - the“Process Approach” is a series of activities, where each one adds more value to an item, product, or service, and forwards that item to the next process in the series. Ultimately, this chain of activities results in the final product or service.
A key advantage of this Process Approach is it provides control between individual processes within the quality management system (QMS). It helps align and optimize the performance of each one, when their interactions are managed as a linked series of processes.

:2cents:
 

Peter Fraser

Trusted Information Resource
#16
PS: my paraphrase of the official ISO process approach definition:
A simpler definition - the“Process Approach” is a series of activities, where each one adds more value to an item, product, or service, and forwards that item to the next process in the series. Ultimately, this chain of activities results in the final product or service.
Nope - what you have described (as Marc pointed out earlier) is what actually happens, whether you recognise it or not. The "process approach" requires that you i) recognise that there are processes in action and ii) plan and manage those processes as such, rather than just managing by department, activity and function in isolation. I don't see much difference from "systems thinking" in this regard. It is all to do with how you see and manage the business.

PS Even applying the "process approach" will not of itself avoid you having activities which don't add value - but at least there will be more chance of noticing them...
 
D

dknox4

#17
<snip> In order to implement a process approach, all of the disparate elements that combine to produce a product or service must be coordinated such that a smooth continuum of effort exists across department boundaries. This is what the standard refers to when it talks about processes and their interactions. If such a continuum does exist, it does so irrespective of documentation, the standard and CB auditors who want to "promote" things but don't understand what they want to promote.
I think you have wrapped it up pretty well here. Thanks.
 

Marc

Hunkered Down for the Duration with a Mask on...
Staff member
Admin
#18
<snip> Not so for process approach, which is a rather murky idea that's related to the concept of "systems thinking." The consultant and author Allan Sayle claims credit for the idea, saying that he developed it in the 1970s. I have no evidence to dispute his claim, but I think the genesis goes back even further, and perhaps Sayle was the first to elucidate the idea in a general business setting and gave the idea the name we're talking about today.
Sayle came around here for a while. He didn't last long. I'd say more but my opinion of him is he's full of himself.
 

Marc

Hunkered Down for the Duration with a Mask on...
Staff member
Admin
#19
Significant differences - the element approach stopped at the edge of the element, and said, "the rest is someone else's responsibility. I don't know anything about the rest." Like a little kid who was not allowed to go beyond the edge of the street. He never sees the rest of the neighborhood. The process approach looks at the whole system, the series of activities to the final result, and considers what role each process plays in that outcome. <snip>
My first audit experiences were in the 1980's in defense electronics in the US. Since I have never seen auditing done any other way (we used to call it "holistic"), and I have *never* seen an ISO 9001 audit done any other way, I simply can not see a bit of difference. I have seen 'segmented' internal audits where, unlike a registration audit where they come in and audit the whole system while they're there, but even in those audits where segments of the system were audited at different times, if done properly internal audits would cover and overlap every aspect of the system.

Let's take a simple department or a simple line audit: The auditor doesn't go into the audit and only examine, for example, document control. One audits any part of the standard that area is subject to. Typical is document control and control of records, along with the non-conformance aspects as they apply to a department or the line operation. I have never seen an audit where an auditor "stopped at the edge of the element". Maybe over 20 years of auditing and being audited isn't a long enough time to have seen an audit where the auditor "stopped at the edge of the element".

I contend that "process audit" is nothing more than slapping a new name on the old buggy.
 

Marc

Hunkered Down for the Duration with a Mask on...
Staff member
Admin
#20
As an aside, from back in the 1990's when I did internal auditing training I taught what are being called process audits. I even cautioned against compliance audits. This is part of the training from the 1990's. It says 'Rendered in 2005' because that's the last time I printed it out for viewing on the web.

Auditing

Over 15 years ago I was teaching process auditing.
 
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