Method , Technique are some other nice neutral words to try to avoid documents getting lost in the Quality Ghetto.
And of course they don't need to be actual text documents (can be flowcharts, wikis, videos, computer systems, etc)
The fact that this has even come up may mean you have a deeper problem.
The company culture may be verbal, and nothing can ever be done to move towards documented procedures in such a company.
Usually this culture can be detected by an order giver/order taker style of management <just tell me what to do and I'll do it>
It may be a e-mail driven culture <you should know - I cc'd you on an e-mail 4 months ago!>
Like the others, I favor using business system documents.
I did a team exercise to review the ISO requirements to see which department should own each clause - some were surprised that the "group called quality" only owned about 20% of it.
The real owners are usually too busy fighting fires to bother to try get organized to prevent them. In some cases they like the fires since it fills up the day nicely.
I'm always amazed when the approach to ISO is "what's the least we can do" and "that's quality's problem"
Some people just can't see the benefit of having a standard method to do work, interestingly Toyota sees the value.
And of course they don't need to be actual text documents (can be flowcharts, wikis, videos, computer systems, etc)
The fact that this has even come up may mean you have a deeper problem.
The company culture may be verbal, and nothing can ever be done to move towards documented procedures in such a company.
Usually this culture can be detected by an order giver/order taker style of management <just tell me what to do and I'll do it>
It may be a e-mail driven culture <you should know - I cc'd you on an e-mail 4 months ago!>
Like the others, I favor using business system documents.
I did a team exercise to review the ISO requirements to see which department should own each clause - some were surprised that the "group called quality" only owned about 20% of it.
The real owners are usually too busy fighting fires to bother to try get organized to prevent them. In some cases they like the fires since it fills up the day nicely.
I'm always amazed when the approach to ISO is "what's the least we can do" and "that's quality's problem"
Some people just can't see the benefit of having a standard method to do work, interestingly Toyota sees the value.
Not that you asked , but personally, I object to the use of the word "Quality" since it implies "High" or "superior" quality to the uninitiated, when in fact, an organization might well be generating mediocre or low quality products. However, if that's what the customer has pre-defined, then it's your job to consistently produce those "mediocre" products per customer specifications. ISO is more about consistent results and pre-defined, controlled and predictable output than it is about quality. If it was about "high" quality, we would probably have cars that last a lot longer, along with the miriad of other consumer goods that constantly need replacement due to the "quality" (or lack thereof) of their component parts. 