Quality Manager Reporting to Director of Manufacturing - Conflict of Interest?

[Geoff Withnell]

Having BEEN a Quality Manager, reporting to the Director of Operations (in that organization the head of manufacturing) I know it can work well in a 9000 environment. The DO was measured on good product shipped on time, and within budgeted cost. Returned product was subtracted from product shipped, and for metric purposes was recorded as being shipped when the replacement was shipped, and was therefor not timely. Costs of defects, including field failures were added to production costs. So cost of quality were in manifacturing's metrics. The DO used me as his expert on keeping such costs down.

If we really believe that quality is of economic benefit to a company, then there is no conflict of interest. Production and Quality are both interested in seeing good product shipped. If it's not good, or not shipped, they go out of business together.

 

[sridharafep]

Re: Quality Manager Reporting to Director of Manufacturing

the iso 9001:2008 document does not even mention a quality manager. The closest you will find is in sections 5.5.1 and 5.5.2, especially the bit concerning the management representative having authority over the qms.

As a side comment, as9100c has an additional requirement concerning the management representative role, requiring him/her to have the organizational freedom and unrestricted access to top management, to resolve qms issues.

we can find the quality manager role in iso 17025 !!

 

[harry]

Re: Quality Manager Reporting to Director of Manufacturing

we can find the quality manager role in iso 17025 !!

I do not think you can compare an apple to an orange. The Quality Manager prescribed in ISO 17025 have 'DIRECT' access to the top management relevant to the lab and hence no conflict of interest can arise. This is not the case in ISO 9001 - which is the subject of discussions in this thread.

 

[sridharafep]

Re: Quality Manager Reporting to Director of Manufacturing

Agree….

but my point here is “Quality Manager” term exist within ISO series of standard.

Some are stating here that DOESN’T NEED A "QUALITY DEPARTMENT / QUALITY MANAGER" - the point here is not position or department - the task / role.

- in fact if each employees does the job correctly then we have total Quality!

Can we see any country operating without police system.

 

[harry]

.............. Some are stating here that DOESN’T NEED A "QUALITY DEPARTMENT / QUALITY MANAGER" .................

SSSHHHHHH ... don't tell anyone, but you don't need a quality manager, inspectors or a quality department to conform to ISO, AS or TS. You just need a QMS that conforms to the requirements.:mg:

Some comments were made in 'jest'. You'll have to interpret it together with the smileys mg:) used.