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Which processes has to be included?

Discussion in 'ISO 9001:2015 - Quality Management Systems' started by Kranis, Jul 14, 2020.

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  1. Kranis

    Kranis Member

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    I´m working at a midsized company and we are in the state of implementing ISO9001:2015.

    We have some processes that are in big need of improvment (Sales, Production) and some other processes that works well (HR, Finance, IT).

    I have one general question. Is it possible that we can only cover Sales and Production related processes in our implementation of ISO 9001? Or is it required that everything is included?

    Thanks!
     
  2. John C. Abnet

    John C. Abnet Well-Known Member

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    Good day Kranis and welcome to the site.
    Before we jump in with answers, please help us understand better....
    1- What is the general scope of your organization (i.e. what is it your organization does? Service, manufacturing, etc..etc..)?
    2- Why (what is the impetus) is your organization choosing to become ISO 9001 certified?

    Thank you.
     
  3. Kranis

    Kranis Member

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    Hello John,

    Thanks for your reploy.

    1. We are within construction business. Approx. 300 employees.
    2. The reason is only to improve the processes and make the business more efficient. With sales and production processes there is large room for improvment for us. Spending time on the other processes (IT, marketing, HR, Finance) is hard to justify right now.
     
  4. John C. Abnet

    John C. Abnet Well-Known Member

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    Thank you @Kranis. This information is helpful.

    So, your "output" (product) is the construction/item (house, road, bridge, etc..etc...) that you build/provide to your customer.

    It's important to remember that the SCOPE (intent) of the ISO 9001:2015 standard is as follows (paraphrased)...
    1 Scope
    a) provide product that meets customer (and regulatory) requirements.
    b) increase customer satisfaction by continually improving.


    Consider (regardless of the ISO standard) which processes your organization performs that contribute to 1a) and 1b) above?

    While your senior leadership may put emphasis on "marketing", and "finance", ....the customer probably does not directly care about these (assuming s/he receives proper invoicing).

    A QMS should indeed be developed for the selfish good of the organization, however, the primary intent (as can be seen by the scope of standard as listed above) is CUSTOMER focus. The implication being (correctly) that if the customer is well taken care of, the business earns the opportunity to succeed and sustain and the customer's interest is protected.

    Indeed, the authors of the current ISO 9001:2015 standard added a complete new clause 5.1.2 Customer Focus to emphasize and audit to that requirement.

    Hope this helps.
    Be well.
     
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  5. Kranis

    Kranis Member

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    @John C. Abnet yes that´s is correct that our output is house, road, bridge, etc. We are a highly project-oriented company.

    I would prefer to only create a QMS for the Production related processes (which involves Project managers and construction workers). Our Production processes will have the following subprocesses:
    • Execution
    • Time management
    • Controlling the project economy
    • Risk management
    • Employee management
    • Supplier management
    • Customer management
    Above will be follow both on a project level and the data will be aggregated so we can follow on a company level.

    So as I understand, by including only Production related processes I will still satisfy a) and b).
    In that case it would not be required to invlove staff from e.g. Finance (even though they are the ones that actually sends the Invoice to the customer).

    It that correct interpret?

    Thanks again!
     
  6. Guy Léger

    Guy Léger Member

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    If you allow me to speack I can say that a company have several management systems...Finance management system, HR management System, Project Management System, Marketing management system, Quality management system and the others...Every management system has it requirement and ISO 9001 only focus on the requirement of the Quality Management System... it can be interpreted like this
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2020
  7. John C. Abnet

    John C. Abnet Well-Known Member

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    Good day Kranis;
    No, that is not correct. Apologies if I was unclear.
    I believe the confusion may be coming from your "departmental" approach. I would recommend instead of viewing by "departments" you instead review by process. (By the way, that is the intent of the standard, i.e. to use a process based approach).

    For example, section 7.2 lists requirements for competence. Obviously your organization (and your customer !) want/need your personnel to be competent in your work.

    There are certainly other departments/areas in your organization that impact the customer and the requirements of the standard. As you noted, your customers are certainly impacted by the issuance of quotes and invoices. Prior to operations, I would assume your Sales department is reviewing proposals to determine feasibility.

    What I would recommend is that (if not already done) your organization performs a gap analysis and looks at what it ALREADY does which may (likely, since ISO 9001 is not overly prescriptive) currently meet the requirements of the standard.

    Hope this.
    Be well.
     
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  8. Guy Léger

    Guy Léger Member

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    The global process mapping integrate all the other departments...the point of view also depend of the level of the reviewing.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2020
  9. Kranis

    Kranis Member

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    @John C. Abnet Thanks for your reply again.

    Hm.. it´s quite hard to understand what it´s required or not. In one way or another every employee/department is needed to satisfy our customers. For e.g. cleaners needs to come every week, otherwise it will be dusty and customer might start to question our professionality. Does that mean that we need to write down routines/processes to manage our cleaning services?

    In the same way our markerting, HR, Sales, Finance works totally fine as it is today. All are important, but customers or top management will not care much if we improve these further.

    Where to draw the line here? Perhaps by dividing our processes into direct and support processes? Direct processes would include Sales and Production. And support processes would be Finance, HR, IT, cleaning services etc. And then only let the direct processes be included in the QMS?
     
  10. John C. Abnet

    John C. Abnet Well-Known Member

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    Good day @Kranis ;
    I would as, why are you trying to "draw a line" ? Remember, the focus is customer, but the purpose is to ensure a well developed, sustainable, functioning management system that will benefit your organization. Follow the process trail where it leads, and don't get hung up on "department" names and where to "draw the line".

    Hope this helps.
    Be well.
     
  11. Kranis

    Kranis Member

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    Thanks for your reply again!

    We are a private company and the things we do must be justified economically. What is the purpose of spending huge amount of time to administrate areas of the business that already works?
    Implementing a QMS without having business improvment as a goal will turn into uncessary bureaucracy, and it will neither get acceptance from the employees or management.

    We are a highly project-oriented company, and everything that is of value of the company happens in the projects, therefore I had hoped that it would been possible to foucs only on the core of the business (which is project management in our case) - instead of pointless documentation in other areas.
     
  12. John C. Abnet

    John C. Abnet Well-Known Member

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    Oh don't misunderstand. I am not advocating any pointless documentation or otherwise. Do what's right for the organization. For those areas that are currently working well, I would challenge your organization to understand WHY they are working well. Is it simply because of specific individuals that are the process owners of those activities? If those key individuals left the organization,would the areas that "already work" sustain?

    Food for thought.
    Be well.
     
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  13. Kranis

    Kranis Member

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    It´s more a question about where the business value is. If we spend time on making a super effective Finance process, the only benefit for us is that we can cut a few hours it takes to do it per month. That is very small money so no one really cares if we have ineffective processes in this area - as we currently are bleedng in our core processes.

    Sorry, to stress this question again, but i´m still trying to understand whether the scope of the QMS has to be organization wide or can we focus only on our core processes?

    Thanks for your patience :)
     
  14. Rustle

    Rustle Member

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    Hi Kranis, you need to cover everything but you don't need to write complex procedures or change anything for the sake of ISO compliance. Would make sense to include in your management system documentation a brief summary of how the existing good processes work. Just summarise who is in charge of the process, reference any existing procedures or software used and any other key information.
    When I prepare management system documentation I don't reference ANY ISO clauses ever as the document should just be a summary of how you do what you do.
     
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  15. Guy Léger

    Guy Léger Member

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    I think the scope of the QMS has to be organization wide but the level of details has to be seen carefully. If I have well understood, your company need to increase sale and improve production...the costomer focus principle require to identify the need of customer in order to provide product and service that meet their requirements.

    The problem here is that there are two types of customer: existing customers and new customers...the scope of the QMS deal with the two type of customer but specifically with the existing customers(customer that the company already have). The idea is that if you can satisfy and retain an existing customer, you can probably gain a new one behind this existing customer. But in practice, this is not always true because it's more difficult to gain a new customer than to satisfy an existing customer...all the potential customer don't have the same habit and the same behaviour...another methodology or management system has to be taken under consideration at this level...
    for the sale processes only...
    The production is entirely covered by ISO 9001

    Sincerely
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2020
  16. Kranis

    Kranis Member

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    Hello Rustle and Guy Léger

    What I´m seeking after is a QMS that differs between peanut questions and where the real business value is. The core processes, which is managing a construction site, needs to be highly detailed and we want them to be followed up on a monthly basis. However, then we have several other areas e.g. HR, IT, Marketing, Finance that works fine and does not need any improvment.

    Is there any way I can build a QMS that has focus on important things and as little as possible (preferably nothing) on the unimportant areas?

    Or is everyhing equally important in the ISO world?
     
  17. Andy Nichols

    Andy Nichols Moderator Staff Member

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    Kranis: Can I ask if you have a copy of ISO 9001:2015? The answer is in the standard, the vocabulary and the guidance. Someone can tell you here, that doesn't mean the answer is correct. YOU must understand, from studying and not take what you are told - unless the person can point to you where in the standard backs up their comment.

    Yes! That's YOUR ORGANIZATION'S job to do that. Have you had anyone explain to you how the various pieces of the standard work together to achieve this?
     
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  18. Rustle

    Rustle Member

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    You are free to add as much detail to the important / high risk areas as you think is necessary but you cannot just ignore other parts of the business which support these key areas or declare them to not be a part of your QMS. Just cover them briefly and move on to what you want to focus on. In practical terms would suggest a concise QMS document which references more detailed operational procedures for construction.
     
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  19. Guy Léger

    Guy Léger Member

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    If I have understood you @Kranis , I can say that for me, everything is equally important in the ISO 9001 stardards...but because some clauses required by ISO 9001:2015 already work fine in your company(clause 7. for example), I think the priority should be given in clause 8., 9., and 10. for the production improvement...
    For the sale improvement, comply with clause 5. in priory and other sale management methods...

    This is only my point of view,

    Sincerely
     
  20. Andy Nichols

    Andy Nichols Moderator Staff Member

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    It's not for any outsider to say! The fact is that, if @Kranis has developed a Quality Management System, based on the processes of the organization (what they do), have set measurable objectives for those processes, have implemented those processes and measured the results from those processes, the comparison of the results to the objectives, with the results of internal audits/customer feedback, will tell them what needs to be improved. It is not for anyone outside to suggest where priorities are.
     
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