Small Companies and the ISO 9001 Management Representative

[Sidney Vianna]

The *important* part is that who ever is the Management Representative know and understand ISO 9001 requirements. Someone in the company has to know and understand the standard and how it relates to their company and company systems.

I agree wholeheartedly.

Yes, a clerk could technically be 'assigned' to be management representative, but if the clerk doesn't know and understand the requirements of the standard, who will? How will the clerk know what the responsibilities of a management representative are?

How would a clerk have authority over the QMS? The standard requires the MR to have authority. A lowly underling typically lacks authority over anything. In my experience, the assignment of the MR position to someone way down in the organizational structure is just another hint that the organization does not understand the M in QMS and is destined to fail in terms of implementing an effective, sustainable and thriving quality system.

 

[jerry_Malaysia]

The *important* part is that who ever is the Management Representative know and understand ISO 9001 requirements. Someone in the company has to know and understand the standard and how it relates to their company and company systems.

Yes, a clerk could technically be 'assigned' to be management representative, but if the clerk doesn't know and understand the requirements of the standard, who will? How will the clerk know what the responsibilities of a management representative are?

It depends how small an organization is. I have experience conducting a second party audit with one company which only have total 4 headcount. 1 person be the director cum technical manager cum sales manager cum production manager cum quality manager. He has a clerk whose doing purchasing, HR, account, payroll, IT, logistic, delivery and also runs a small laboratory for testing. He has another 2 person to run and maintain production machines, also taking care of storage and warehouse. The clerk was assigned as MR and she has been trained. I was surprised :mg: but couldn't find a clause not to accept it.
One thing great about this company is : they have not have any quality issue, delivery issue and technical support over 3 years of supply. Quite amazing.

 

[samsung]

It depends how small an organization is. I have experience conducting a second party audit with one company which only have total 4 headcount. 1 person be the director cum technical manager cum sales manager cum production manager cum quality manager. He has a clerk whose doing purchasing, HR, account, payroll, IT, logistic, delivery and also runs a small laboratory for testing. He has another 2 person to run and maintain production machines, also taking care of storage and warehouse. The clerk was assigned as MR and she has been trained. I was surprised :mg: but couldn't find a clause not to accept it.
One thing great about this company is : they have not have any quality issue, delivery issue and technical support over 3 years of supply. Quite amazing.

The 'clerk' here seems to have management authority to carry out (manage) the jobs of, as you said, purchasing, HR, account, payroll, IT, logistic, delivery and also runs a small laboratory for testing.

So, IMO, this 'clerk' satisfies the requirements laid down by the standard.

 

[Marc]

<snip> How would a clerk have authority over the QMS? <snip>

I agree. The 'clerk' comment came from the post where Jerry essentially said the management rep could delegate some or all of the responsibilities to a clerk.

Comments from those of you who cited small companies, I agree with you as well. A clerk in a 5 person company could have other duties, and in a small company they almost always do, one or more of which could be management positions for all intents and purposes if not outright.

A 'problem' in many discussions here is often we answer with respect to our specific company (which is to be expected). As we all know, companies are so varied that what works in one company might not in another company.

 

[Al Rosen]

IMO the MR according to the standard is a member of management. That's why it's called a Management Representative. The owner can appoint the president to be the MR, who can delegate the tasks to the engineering manager, sales manager and quality manager.

 

[SteelMaiden]

Also remember that depending on how your organization is set up, there may be members of management who are not "managers". For instance, my org. Where most places would have a q-manager, and a safety manager, etc., we have "coordinators". We don't actually have depts that we manage, but we do report directly to the highest member of management.

 

[Bob the QE]

Let me see if I can clarify myself a litle more on this. The standard does say that the rep. must be a "member of the organizations management". This org is so centrally structured that there is no other "management" other than the president. So let me ask it another way, experienced auditors who have audited small organizations lets say a small sales org where there is the owner and buyers what would you expect to see when you look at the management rep position. I also never mentioned or suggested it wasn't important, only done 4 times a year so please stay on point or at least give me your wealth of knowledge and experience on my situation and then debate the other points if you wish.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Marc]

If you have an owner and 3 sales people (or buyers or what ever), I would think that unless one of the sales people (or buyers or what ever) was trained in ISO 9001 the management representative would have to be the owner.

 

[bpritts]

I have worked with several companies of this size, and have taken the approach of having whichever leader in the company is most hands-on with the quality system be the MR. The bigger problem is structuring the internal audit process to provide independence; the tendency will be to have the same individual do all jobs - MR, quality system developer, internal auditor... as well as being the lead engineer, or plant manager, or whatever. This pretty well screws up the "independence" of the internal audit process!

One solution for that is to outsource the internal audit to a consultant (like yours truly!), or alternatively to negotiate a "mutual aid" deal with another company to trade internal audit help.

Best...........Brad

 

[JaneB]

I've helped many smaller organisations implement 9001 - in most cases it was the MD, CEO or whathave you who was the management rep. S/he could always delegate work to other people, but remained the 'top management' in charge of the system. In other cases, there wasn't a single person at the top (eg, 6 partners in one, 2 Directors in another, etc). For the multiple partners, the MR job was allocated to one of the partners, for the 2 Directors, 1 Director took on the MR role.

If there's only 1 owner/MD, and they are the MR, reporting is quite a short exercise

In my experience, the assignment of the MR position to someone way down in the organizational structure is just another hint that the organization does not understand the M in QMS and is destined to fail in terms of implementing an effective, sustainable and thriving quality system.

Yes, exactly too. My experience also.

I have worked with several companies of this size, and have taken the approach of having whichever leader in the company is most hands-on with the quality system be the MR.

Or best suited.

The bigger problem is structuring the internal audit process to provide independence; the tendency will be to have the same individual do all jobs - MR, quality system developer, internal auditor... as well as being the lead engineer, or plant manager, or whatever. This pretty well screws up the "independence" of the internal audit process!

Well, yes, but common sense needs to prevail.

The strongest advice I'd give re. smaller companies is to be sure to get a reputable CB who can adapt to smaller companies and is flexible and intelligent and experienced enough to do so. The very last thing you want or need is some auditor/CB whose sole experience and knowledge is in large companies: they just don't 'get it'!