QMS (Quality Management System) Manual - The Boss Wants a 4 Page Manual - What to Do?

[brandwood]

I'm going to be a contrarian here and suggest that the boss is on the right track. I just helped a company through ISO 123485 and with the support of the external auditors went for a very abbreviated QM. The current thinking with new ISO 9000 especially is that the QM is a staement of principles and objectives and a summary of the business and what it does, with reference to where the detail of the system can be found. That can be as genereic as a statement to the effect of the suystem is controlled by Procdures and WIs (as identified in a separate index) maintained by the Quality Manager.

Thjis way you get a positive document, which is essentially a corporate CV, with no concerns about confidentiality and if you make it look good is an effective bit of marketing literature.

Arthur

 

[celeo]

I've audited a company that supplied a 6 page Q manual (and 2 of those were cover pages). Within the 4 remaining pages were the hyperlinks to all the detail. Only problem was that the Q-manual could only be reviewed on-site and was entirely electronic. It was a good Q-system. Familiarity and implementation was excellent.

 

[Mustang]

technically...

Section 4.2.1 NOTE 3 states: "The documentation can be in any form or type of medium", so they are technically in compliance. That sure leaves it pretty wide open if someone wanted to be creative.... How about a Quality Manual set to music? Or a mural? Or carved onto the sides of a cube? Hmmm... now my "frustrated Artist" side is working...

Ours is electronic, I only put together the paper Brochure because so many customers (and our auditor) wanted a copy (not to mention, it satisfied the frustrated artist for a bit). Internally we access everything through a master process map on the Intranet (click on the box, and the process opens).

If theirs is totally electronic, what do they do if someone requests a copy?

 

[Mike S.]

Why not e-mail the QM if it is all electronic and someone wants a copy? This would beat the time it takes to mail a hardcopy -- even by Fed Ex!

Or burn it on CD?

Or copy to a floppy?

 

[Wes Bucey]

Why not e-mail the QM if it is all electronic and someone wants a copy? This would beat the time it takes to mail a hardcopy -- even by Fed Ex!

Or burn it on CD?

Or copy to a floppy?

Certainly!
A needed dose of common sense, Mike!

 

[Mustang]

The possible problems with that would be you may need to email all of the linked documents as well. If there are lots, it would overload most email systems.

I need to work some bugs out of my printable version to make it emailable. I have lots of graphics in it, so it is a 2 meg .pdf file... 5 meg in Visio.

 

[Wes Bucey]

The possible problems with that would be you may need to email all of the linked documents as well. If there are lots, it would overload most email systems.

I need to work some bugs out of my printable version to make it emailable. I have lots of graphics in it, so it is a 2 meg .pdf file... 5 meg in Visio.

In my opinion, you are mixing apples and oranges - the linked documents would most likely be from the next lower levels of documents (Procedures, Work Instructions, etc.) which are not normally delivered with most Quality Manuals, but are only included by reference.

If you have "interactive" graphics - such as clicking on a box in a flow chart brings up details of that segment of the process, then you are talking about having the entire QMS on line. (not a bad idea, incidentally) The entire QMS is not necessarily laid out for everyone who has a copy of the Quality Manual, so everyone would not necessarily have access permission to every link in the top level document (I can envision some Work Instructions being trade secrets.)

Therefore, Mike S's idea of CD or even DVD begins to make sense for those who need a copy of the entire QMS - certainly much easier and inexpensive to create a CD or DVD (you could even have animation) than print hard copies of hundreds of color graphics. In extreme cases, where revisions and additions to components of the QMS are frequent, the entire thing could be put up in a virtual private network on the internet, password protected. As always, individual work stations which need up-to-date copies of Work Instructions, etc. could have those delivered separately in whatever medium (electronic, paper, video) is most convenient for worker at the station to use.

Just my two cents as I wake up from a much-needed nap.

 

[Greg B]

Why not e-mail the QM if it is all electronic and someone wants a copy? This would beat the time it takes to mail a hardcopy -- even by Fed Ex!

Or burn it on CD?

Or copy to a floppy?

Mike,

Our travelling sales reps carry all of our specs, data sheets, QM and necessary forms on a CD. We categorise them by colour. They may have a red CD and the next time one of the docs changes we issue them a new CD (Blue for example). They know to destroy the RED one or return it to me for disposal.

 

[Yugender100 - 2005]

Help me

What I described was our "Quality Manual" as required by ISO/TS... I also have the master process flow as an electronic image on our intranet, and all someone has to do is click on the box that represents the process and the individual process map opens. Then I have a master document index on the intranet that contains all forms and work instructions, which is searchable (by number, type or title) and linked to the document itself. Mine would be well over 100 pages if everything were printed out (and old management used to require it....). The nice thing is, the requirement has few necessary items, so the actual "manual" can be done simply and efficiently. There is nothing that states everything else needs to be included. That is simply a business choice a company would make if it works for them. I have structured our system to not need all of that detail in printed format, just the basic stuff. It's useful that way (the brochure) when customers ask for a copy, which they sometimes do. We did at one point include everything, but it caused "information overload", where there was so much stuff, no one would look for what they needed in it.

If you have any questions about what I've done, please let me know.

Hello sir ,

I am very glad to see you in this posting. I have some query regarding the ISO. As per ISO i started working on Procedures, i will work on all ISO related topics, but i am not getting the implement part.

Let me clear you, there are certain things have to incorporate as per ISO requirements. But i am confused how to incorporate those things in my company. As per ISO it is very essentail to maintain records, but there is only department maintaining records, remaining departments not yet started. I already informed them about the ISO requirements, but they are showing resistance.

Please tell me how to train my people about ISO requirements.

Thanks & Regards
Yugender. K
ISO Quality Department
IIC Systems Pvt. Ltd.

 

[Jeff Frost]

Four-page quality manual is very possible. The My companies actual quality manual has 5 pages with cover page and revision page. Because we are AS9100 Registered we had to also list our operational procedures in it and then added a cross-reference list because we elected to maintain the old 20-element format.

Manual breaks down to the following:

Page One: Cover Page.

Page Two:
 Scope
 Quality Policy
 Corporate Profile
 General (description and interrelationship of QMS)

Page Three:

 Contains the QMS Model with our process titles inserted (Figure 1 of AS9100B). Sub list of processes, ether by title or in flow chart form and QMS exclusions

Page Four

Bullet point definitions of four primary processes: management, resources, product realization and metrics and improvement.

Page Five

 Revision Page.

Page 6 to 10

 Index of our operational procedures and work instructions


Page 11 to 14

 Operational procedures cross-reference to AS9100B and other imposed QMS requirements.


One question asked is why we maintained the old 20-element format and our answer is quite simple:

 Employees are familiar with format
 Customers sill imposes and audit to the older standards
 We manufacture to differing business sectors that have imposed ISO, TL, TS and AS QMS requirements (all in deferring formats)