Quality Policy: Content Requirements

[ISO Cheesy]

Quality Policy or Do It...Or Else?? Help

QUALITY POLICY or “Do it – or else” ??

"Deliver the highest quality service and products to our customers by doing things right the first time".

OK here is goes…I started at this company about 4 weeks ago. The first day I was here I was notified via e-mail what the new Quality Policy was. My first reaction was “How in the he** does this state our commitment to continual improvement or support the quality objectives.” (which are very fuzzy and not being measured)

I’m asking if any of you think the same as I or if I’m just being a pain in the :ca: . IMHO, it tells me that upper management just wants me to do things right the first time, but gives me no tools to do that….

Any feedback welcome

 

[mshell]

Agree

I agree. I do not see how that policy addresses the requirements of the standard with respect to:

Organizational objectives
Management commitment to continual improvement
Organizational goals
Expectations and needs of customers

I am dealing with a similar issue. I think we need a little more detail before the policy meets all of the requirements. Hopefully, upper management will rewrite ours soon.

Our commitment to ALL Customers is to: "Do The Right Thing" by Honoring Our Shared Values: Respect for Others, Personal Responsibility, Learning, Pursuit of Quality and Thinking Beyond Our Boundaries. The adherence to these principles shall result in the delivery of the highest quality products to our customers. We are committed to continual improvement and will strive toward all objectives.

 

[SteelMaiden]

I always hate it when somebody wants to put best, highest, etc., etc. Number one, you are kind of leaving yourself open for failure, number two, there isn't much room for continual improvement as you said. You do have somewhat of a framework for your measurables, highest quality product and service and do you actually do thing right the first time. But, I'm with you on this, you need some statement of continual improvement.

 

[SteelWoman]

1) I agree that the statement you were given lacks..... well, pretty much everything. I can't IMAGINE an auditor will that one fly.

2) We have always enjoyed the ability to write our own Quality Policy statements until very recently, when corp folks got together and for some reason decided to "unify" the statement across all divisions - we got handed a one page Quality Policy statement that is supposed to encompass all the hot button points in TS, ISO14 and ISO18. I understand where corp is coming from (in my good moments, I do) but on the other hand I think each division being so different we SHOULD craft a statement that is specific to THIS operation.

One tact you might take - with this new "corp policy" statment and even with our previous statement, it was rather longish. For training purposes we teach folks a much more brief version of that statement - one or two sentences that encompasses the spirit of the longer Quality Policy statement. How about approaching your guy and saying, this is a great starting point - this is exactly what we want to teach everyone in the facility!. But then create a document that has that at it's heading and goes ON in the kind of detail you apparently want to craft a version that better encompasses your quality intentions.

 

[Randy Stewart]

I think it's a great Quality Policy. Straight and to the point, no flowery words that have no meaning. No mumbo, jumbo, smoke and mirrors, it tells you what the company expects.

By trying to add all this added baggage you make the policy useless.

Organizational objectives
Management commitment to continual improvement
Organizational goals
Expectations and needs of customers

Now what you do is map your stategies (maybe add objectives) and bring in the above mentioned points.

I have seen, all to often, where a company writes a Quality Policy that sounds more like a legal brief.

Here, you decide which one is read and understood:
1 INSPECTION REJECTION:
Notwithstanding prior inspection, payment for, or use of the goods. Buyer shall have the right to reject any such goods, which do not conform to the requirements of this order. Such right shall be exercisable with the period provided in buyer's applicable specification or elsewhere in this order, or in the absence thereof, within 6 months following the receipt of the goods called for. All such items shall be returned to the seller, transportation collect (declared at full value, unless Seller advises otherwise) for credit or refund and shall not be replaced by the Seller except upon written instruction of the Buyer, excepting however those goods which the Buyer elects to repair at the Sellers expense. Should Buyer in such case repair the goods, all purchase order terms shall remain in full force and affect as to the goods furnished by seller. Buyer rights under this subparagraph shall be in addition to and shall not be deemed to be diminished by its rights under the paragraph hereof entitled "Warranty".


2 INSPECTION REJECTION:
The vendor shall maintain an inspection system adequate to ensure that material shipped against this order meets all applicable requirements. The system shall also provide for the maintenance of records and data of all inspections and tests performed, and provide for these records to be available for examination and verification by TDM Purchasing upon request.

See what I mean, so let the policy stand. But document how you are going to achieve it.

 

[SteelWoman]

My favorite quality policy story - we were having a surveillance audit and the auditor walked up to a production employee and asked if he knew the quality policy for the facility. We'd done lots of training (this was the early days of our system) and made sure everyone knew it. The employee grinned and "paraphrased" (which we'd said was fine) the quality policy this way, "Don't ship no ****." The auditor loved it and gave him full credit for knowing the policy statement.

I agree that a lot of times lengthy statements are a waste of the paper they're printed on, but this is one of those situations where at least some basic stuff is expected to be there in the policy statement, like CI, as pointed out by others.

 

[RoxaneB]

I agree with Randy, but (playing Devil's Advocate), I can see many External Auditors having problems with it. Too short. No measurables. No obvious matching to what ISO 9001:2000 wants in a QualPol...except for meeting Customer requirements (which ISO Cheesy's organization has stated rather succinctly).

This then leads into other questions.

• What do Auditors really audit against? ISO 9001? Or their own internal Standard (i.e., perception)?
• To remove "creativity" and "individuality" from the QualPol so that it meets all requirements of ISO 9001:2000, is there really any benefit to having one? Makes it difficult for your QualPol to stand out from other organizations. And if you develop so that it just meets the requirements, how can the organization truly believe in it?

I like ISO Cheesy's QualPol and if the documentation supporting it is available, as Randy indicated, I wouldn't have a problem with it...but I can see a lot of External Auditors taking a red pen to it.

 

[ISO Cheesy]

The way I look at it is you have two types of QP… 1) something top management really believes in and is committed to and it rolls down hill to all the employees(fluff or no fluff). and 2) a QP the conforms to the standard to pass the audit…maybe even laminating it for everyone’s badge in case they where on vacation (or sleeping)the day before the audit when the last min. training took place.

In my case our policy is nether or. I agree with you Randy about all the fluff stuff, but we don’t have the systems in place to “do it right the first time”. So instead of employees reporting issues, they are hiding them and finger pointing to other departments. I know I know…a quality policy won’t fix that, but I just wanted some feedback and to vent a little.

Thanks for all your feedback...and I guess it is better then saying "try to do it right the first time" and yes I have seen that also

 

[Randy Stewart]

Okay folks, take off the QS blinders (that will leave a mark) and read between the lines!

"Deliver the highest quality service and products to our customers by doing things right the first time".

5.3 as I see it:
a) Can't argue unless your company's function is to screw up and miss deliveries.

b) Think about this now, do we meet the 100% on time delivery all the time? No, do you have a documented improvement plan for being 99.9% on-time? No (for most of us) but isn't the goal 100%? Do we need to state that in our policy? No. It is then proven by my measurables, my corrective actions, my process reviews (or if you would rather - audits) that I'm working towards 100% First Time Quality and therefore continually improving my system.

c) How am I reaching FTQ, I may be tracking Through-put Yield, I may show reduced inspection rejections. Isn't that a quality objective? Can't that help me move towards FTQ?

d) Ask someone they'll be able to convey the meaning.

d) How's the progress towards FTQ?

You can easily back this up, IF your measures and system is geared towards FTQ. Show how you implement FTQ Teams, show how you disect processes in order to improve them, show Value Stream Mapping, etc.

With a Policy statement like that you can really shine to an auditor. It shows you have used the standard as a guide to set up your system, you haven't allowed the standard to dictate how you operate but your system can embrace the intent of the standard.

When I see something like this I know 1 of 2 things will be true: either I'm going to learn something or this is going to be easy because they don't have a clue at what the intent is.

 

[ISO Cheesy]

The employee grinned and "paraphrased" Don't ship no ****." The auditor loved it and gave him full credit for knowing the policy statement.

Ha ha …I love it! I had a guy that looked at his badge to read the QP to the auditor. He stated…”to continuously starve for improvement”. should of been “Strive”.