Quality/Production Procedures - The "What and How" information

[Larry Res]

I am currently involved with the writing of the production procedures and quality procedures for a company which is considering
ISO9000 certification. The catch 22 I am currently in pertains to the "What and How" information should be presented. I for one am x-military with a high degree for attention to detail. Without going into a long and drag out story, I am requesting anyone to submit to me a basic production procedure with all the "if's, and's and but's" included. The main point I am trying to make with my company is what should or needs to be included within the production procedures. I firmly believe that all tools needed to complete a task should be listed even down to the simple items such as if a cotton swab would be needed to remove excess epoxy. In other words, it is the companies belief to only include special types of tools. I am also curious to know where most companies
include their Warnings, Cautions, and Notes. My philosophy is to put Warnings and Cautions before the instructions they effect and that the simple Notes would either follow or be included within the instruction line.

Any assistance or feedback would be greatly appreciated. You may either post your feedback here.

Respectfully yours,
Larry

 

[rrramirez]

Larry:
I suggest you to read the following topics before "to write" any procedure:
1) The brochure "Selection and use of ISO 9000; you can get it for free from the web site http://www.iso.ch/
2) 4.6, 4.7, and 4.8 of ISO 9000-1:1994
3) 5.0 :The role of the documentation; ISO 9000-1:1994;
4) 5.2..5 and 5.3 (all clauses) and 11.5 of ISO 9004-1:1994.
5)4.2.2 of ISO 9001:1994.

You don´t need to document too much when your operators have a good knowledge of the work to be done.

Reinaldo Ramirez

------------------
Senior Member ASQ (1986)

 

[Alan Cotterell]

Larry, I agree with your philosophy of including warnings in operating procedures. I think it is helpful to structure the management manual with 'mission and vision' at the top of the documentation tree, then a 'policy manual' followed by the 'procedures manual'. If you do this you minimise writing policy matters into procedures. I think it is important when writing procedures to define the product and then develop a 'project flow chart' to guide the deveopment of procedures.
I believe procedures should reflect policies, which should be guided from the mission and vision statement, so the first thing to do is structure the policy manual index.