Quality Management System Documentation Language Requirements

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Mario Alberto83

Greetings to all

I have a question, I would really appreciate your input guys since I have looked for simliar threads and did not find anything.

I am implementing AS9100 for a company in Mexico, where some people only speak Spanish, other employees speak Spanish and English, all of our aerospace customers language is English.

1) I believe that all QMS documentation should be written in English language due to it all can be subjected to audit by customer and/or certification agencies.

2) If there are any people in the company whose job profile does not require the position to know English language due to the nature of the duties, applicable QMS documentation for that employee/position should be generated in both languages, for positions where the employee is intended to understand English language, it is not necessary to issue documentation in Spanish language.

3) In the other hand, maybe it is not necessary to create documentation in both languages as long as proper training effectiveness is assured.

The main point is that I believe is that QMS documentation shall be defaulted for English language due to customers and certification agency are English spoken.

Can you provide me your comments, am I right in my thoughts?

Thank you all in advance.
 

qusys

Trusted Information Resource
Re: Quality Management System Documentation Language

Greetings to all

I have a question, I would really appreciate your input guys since I have looked for simliar threads and did not find anything.

I am implementing AS9100 for a company in Mexico, where some people only speak Spanish, other employees speak Spanish and English, all of our aerospace customers language is English.

1) I believe that all QMS documentation should be written in English language due to it all can be subjected to audit by customer and/or certification agencies.

2) If there are any people in the company whose job profile does not require the position to know English language due to the nature of the duties, applicable QMS documentation for that employee/position should be generated in both languages, for positions where the employee is intended to understand English language, it is not necessary to issue documentation in Spanish language.

3) In the other hand, maybe it is not necessary to create documentation in both languages as long as proper training effectiveness is assured.

The main point is that I believe is that QMS documentation shall be defaulted for English language due to customers and certification agency are English spoken.

Can you provide me your comments, am I right in my thoughts?

Thank you all in advance.

Frankly speaking, my opinion is to have a double version in SPanish and English for the documents of high level in documentation pyramid.
Quality manual is one of these documents as well as the mandatory procedures for your QMS.:bigwave:
 
M

Mario Alberto83

Re: Quality Management System Documentation Language

Thanks for your quick reply Gusys, I really appreciate it.

I first confirm with your comments that QMS documentation shall be in English language.

Being that said, all people in charge of carrying out main tasks in QMS depicted in Quality Manual and Procedures are English spoken as per their job descriptions, do you sill believe I need to have two versions?

In the case of lower levels like work instructions and formats, do you believe it would be a problem if I just handle Spanish versions? I mean, WI´s and formats/records are also QMS documentation and can be subjected to audit. Is there any problem if for instance, I show a record in Spanish to my auditor?

Regards
 

qusys

Trusted Information Resource
Re: Quality Management System Documentation Language

Thanks for your quick reply Gusys, I really appreciate it.

I first confirm with your comments that QMS documentation shall be in English language.

Being that said, all people in charge of carrying out main tasks in QMS depicted in Quality Manual and Procedures are English spoken as per their job descriptions, do you sill believe I need to have two versions?

In the case of lower levels like work instructions and formats, do you believe it would be a problem if I just handle Spanish versions? I mean, WI´s and formats/records are also QMS documentation and can be subjected to audit. Is there any problem if for instance, I show a record in Spanish to my auditor?

Regards

Hi Mario Alberto,
nice to meet you and appreciated your thanks.
The Cove is a good place to share ideas, knowledge and support.
To come to your post, I only shared my experience. I agree with that operators/technicians have WIs in Spanish, but the Quality Manual is a general document and could be useful to have in double language so that everyone in the company could read it with no particular skills or competence. This could also be a way to make quality culture and awareness even though there is no requirement for this. In any case , you can also interface with customers and supplier and so it will be usefull for you to have official QMS documents in double languages ( QM and the mandatory documented procedures as well) .
I also agree with you for records and WIs that are subjected to audit. You will not have any problem with the CB auditor during external audit because the CB auditor shall be competent in performing audit, including the language.
Just in case he/she does not understand some record or WI in SPanish, he/she shall have the collaboration of a translator in Spanish. This is up to registrar.

Hoope this helps, waiting for additional opinions from other more expert Covers:bigwave:
 
M

Mario Alberto83

Re: Quality Management System Documentation Language

Qusys, your feedback and experience really helped me, I am clearer about how to proceed. I have seen both cases in different companies where they use the whole QMS documentation in both languages and where they only use lower levels in both languages and they have had no problems in the operation and certification, I think I have choices to do what best fits to the company features and operation.

Thanks again and let see what the other experts can contribute.

Regards
 

qusys

Trusted Information Resource
Re: Quality Management System Documentation Language

Qusys, your feedback and experience really helped me, I am clearer about how to proceed. I have seen both cases in different companies where they use the whole QMS documentation in both languages and where they only use lower levels in both languages and they have had no problems in the operation and certification, I think I have choices to do what best fits to the company features and operation.

Thanks again and let see what the other experts can contribute.

Regards

Hi Mario ALberto, thks again.
Only one thing.
Consider that in WI there could also be safety and environmental instruction just in case you operate in integrated system.
So, for this reason, the WI shall be comprehensive by whom shall apply them in mother tongue .
 

Pancho

wikineer
Super Moderator
Greetings to all

I have a question, I would really appreciate your input guys since I have looked for simliar threads and did not find anything.

I am implementing AS9100 for a company in Mexico, where some people only speak Spanish, other employees speak Spanish and English, all of our aerospace customers language is English.

1) I believe that all QMS documentation should be written in English language due to it all can be subjected to audit by customer and/or certification agencies.

2) If there are any people in the company whose job profile does not require the position to know English language due to the nature of the duties, applicable QMS documentation for that employee/position should be generated in both languages, for positions where the employee is intended to understand English language, it is not necessary to issue documentation in Spanish language.

3) In the other hand, maybe it is not necessary to create documentation in both languages as long as proper training effectiveness is assured.

The main point is that I believe is that QMS documentation shall be defaulted for English language due to customers and certification agency are English spoken.

Can you provide me your comments, am I right in my thoughts?

Thank you all in advance.



Hi Mario Alberto,

The point of the QMS is first and foremost to manage and improve your company's quality. Therefore documents should be in the language of their primary users. For most documents this is the language of the folks doing the work, not the auditors.

We also have our factory in Mexico. Most of our QMS procedures and work instructions are therefore in Spanish. Second and third party audits can usually be arranged in Spanish. But even when they can't, what you need to show evidence of conformity to requirements are records and not procedures. Most of our forms are both in English and Spanish (both languages in the same form). Occasionally a project will demand records in a different, third language and we will provide translations of the forms or the records only.

If an auditor wants to see an instruction and the instruction is not in the auditor's tongue, we fire up Google Chrome (which has built-in translation) and can browse our web-based QMS in whatever language the auditor speaks. The translations aren't perfect, but they are certainly good enough for audit purposes.

Buena suerte!
Pancho
 
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Mario Alberto83

Hi Mario Alberto,

We also have our factory in Mexico. Most of our QMS procedures and work instructions are therefore in Spanish...Most of our forms are both in English and Spanish (both languages in the same form). Occasionally a project will demand records in a different, third language and we will provide translations of the forms or the records only.

Pancho

Hola Pancho, saludos desde Mexico, I am from Saltillo, capital of Coahuila very close to Monterrey, wonderful places both Mty and Saltillo:bigwave:

I just had a debate with management team regarding this topic.

I understand that our QMS should adapt to the primary users language, I think I missed the point that the QMS is intended to improve the organization operation and quality performance; however I also think about customer. In other company I worked, all of our customers had an audit plan to our QMS (Pratt and Whithey, Rolls Royce, Honeywell, etc.) and they used to audit not only records (evidences) but the procedures and instructions as such.

Do you believe the customers should audit the system in the supplier native language? using translators or other resources?

If QMS documentation should be the language of primary users and auditors (customer or CB) should stick to it, why do you have both versions in many cases? Wouldn´t it be enough to have only Spanish versions?

Please let me know your comments
 
C

Chance

Does anyone else have something to share? =)

Tnanks
We translate documents to Spanish also. But I have a question, how do you manage when you are revising the English one? I think its too expensive to hire translator everytime there is a revision. What do you think?
 
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