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ISO9001 - Eliminating the Quality Department

By Ed Bones

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 06Jun2008 Word count: 828 Viewed: 542 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Wherever the ISO9001 Standard is discussed, the one certain item will be that of Improvement. Most often considered is the Continual Improvement requirement of the ISO Standard (section 8) or possible improvements to the Standard itself. This latter particularly at the present time as we await the publication of ISO9001:2008.

Seldom heard is any discussion on the fundamentals of Quality Management as it is determined by individual organisations, both within and without the ISO 9001 registration scheme. It is this that is discussed within this short article.

Since the earliest days of structured Quality Management Systems it has been an established practice to appoint a Head of Quality function, normally but not always as a 'Quality Manager'. The proposition to be made here is that this post is both unnecessary and frequently an encumbrance to effective management.

Unnecessary because the requirements for ISO registration do not demand it, and because at both the individual and functional level this appointee does not in any real way manage Quality. Manufacturing managers, accountants, sales and marketing managers etc, are individually and collectively responsible for the quality of their management and delivery of the outputs of their function. At the time of individual or corporate performance assessment there is no escape from this responsibility. Certainly the quality management is not renowned for accepting responsibility for any deficiency in the quality of performance at that time!

An encumbrance because despite this lack of accountability for functional department performance, quality managers through the activities of their staff occupy a position of control, invariably negative, that takes from accountable staff the authority to exercise the necessary authority in furtherance of departmental business objectives. A classic example of this can be seen across every industry in the management of supplier selection. Typically purchases in support of product development or production require the selection of one or more suppliers. Purchasing agents are mandated to select suppliers and agree terms for supply of the required product or service, and are judged - and sometimes remunerated - against their performance achievement. However, their selection of a supply source is commonly governed by a requirement to have a selected supplier 'assessed' by the Quality function(a.k.a. the Quality Manager) to determine suitability. This determination is frequently an unproductive exercise, with no measurable benefit, that results in significant additional costs and delays that could be avoided. The outcome of this appraisal process is often the rejection of the proposed supplier by people with no responsibility or accountability for their decision. Similar situations exist internal to the organisation in the area of deviation control (concessions) and internal audit. The overriding issue is that responsibility for decision making has been largely taken from those who will be held accountable for the decision, and given to those ill equipped to make the decision and with no responsibility for the outcome.

The proposed solution to this management structure weakness is to re-allocate existing QA staff to those managers and departments utilising the services provided. For example, in this scenario vendor assessments would be performed at the behest of the procurement function, which would manage the staff and alone be responsible for determining actions consequential to the assessment. This arrangement is then to be repeated across the organisation wherever QA staff are utilised and could be re-located.

The previous Quality Department would at that point cease to exist. To satisfy the real need for some central documentation management, and to act as a central resource for internal audit of the management system, the post of System Integrity manager/controller could be established, with a clear responsibility for reporting on the integrity and continued applicability of any documented management system, with perhaps an ongoing responsibility for representing the system status to visiting auditors and customers.

There remains the question of providing an effective internal quality system audit. This is a difficult issue even in a well resourced enterprise, due to conflicting calls on the available staff. The only satisfactory solution to this is the outsourcing of the internal audit task, and maybe the entire system integrity responsibility. By so doing the audit requirement is satisfied, delivered on time, by professional auditors, and at a cost that in real terms is less than that of using occasional internal auditors.

There are no obvious disadvantages here to this proposed change. Managers with responsibility for any aspect of quality (and don't they all have this) will have the resources and authority to deliver on that responsibility. Displaced QA staff will be located closer to the need for their services, and can be seen to deliver value or move on. The new position of System Integrity manager could be a development post with high visibility for any suitable candidate with a potential for higher office, while an outsourced internal audit should bring an improved focus on business needs rather than the more usual nit-picking comments on minor breaches of procedure, as that is the norm for so many audit reports.

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