Re: QMS (Quality Management System) Manual - The Boss Wants a 4 Page Manual - What to
I don't know what people think a quality manual is or why its size is the primary measure of its effectiveness.
The quality manual is a label given to a document that describes an organization's quality management system
It's called a manual because it is intended to be used to help people understand the way an organization defines and achieves its quality policies and objectives and thereby enable them to work in a way that is consistent with those policies and objectives.
Whether this takes 1 page or 5000 pages is irrelevant. The measure of its effectiveness is whether it aids understanding. If it does not reflect the way current processes function and interact and convey this clearly , consistently, completely, unambiguously and concisely, it is not effective. We could identify other factors but these will do to illustrte the point.
Whether or not an organization has a quality manual, it has a system of processes that do or don't enable it to achieve its objectives. Systems and processes do not have to be documented to function. The reason for documenting them is so that we can better understand them, communicate them, evaluate them and improve them. But documentation is only necessary where its absence will adversely affect the ability of people to achieve the objectives in a way that satisfies the constraints.
Now if the question serves to find the best way of documenting systems and processes, this might be a more fruitful endeavour.
If you are worried about what the boss wants, ask him what he thinks a quality manual is and what it is used for. Maybe he only thinks it exists for the external auditors. Maybe he does not see it as conveying understand on how his organization functions. Although not improbable, it would be unsual if your boss did not want his staff to have a common understanding of how the organization functions. When faced with such problems I apply a lesson I learnt from Dr Juran years ago. Discover the reality under the labels, the actions and deeds the other person is talking about. Once these are understood, communication can proceed whether or not there is agreement on the meaning of words like quality manual.
