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Role of QA manager

Discussion in 'ISO 9001:2015 - Quality Management Systems' started by Rajan Gupta, Jan 8, 2018.

  1. Rajan Gupta

    Rajan Gupta Member

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    Role of QA manager and what activities QA manager needs to perform in order to engage the people within the organization to be the part of QMS rather than a compliance manager
     
  2. Darrell B

    Darrell B New Member

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    I will attempt to explain how it works in my org.

    I am the Director of Quality Assurance. I track and report the KPI that are gathered. I train the troops regarding ISO, and their place in an ISO world. Doc Control reports to me. I review all internal audits, and generate CA when required. I am a part of all 3rd party audits. I attend an ungodly amount of meetings.

    Generally, there is a QC Manager that takes on the day to day product related issues (right now that slot is empty, so I have that hat on as well.)

    I am also the Lab Manager for an ISO 17025 accredited test lab. I'm much more than a compliance manager.
     
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  3. Andy Nichols

    Andy Nichols Moderator Staff Member

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    The true role of QA is to provide assurance - confidence - to the organization and to customers (possibly regulators). This means QA as a function normally have a role in the following:

    Internal audits
    Supplier audits
    Product audits
    Calibration and either product testing or witnessing testing
    POC for the customer
    Gatekeeper of the QMS
    Driving Customer focus and Process Ownership, including coaching
    Quality Budget
    CB Liaison
    CI and CA Process owner (usually)

    There's no need to be telling anyone other than the leadership team on ISO. No-one else needs to know, but they might need some awareness of the QMS but even that's the Process Owners' jobs.
     
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  4. Rajan Gupta

    Rajan Gupta Member

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    Thanks for your Input,
    Still i have few queries
    What do you mean by track and and report KPI that are gathered?
    what are the mean of gathering KPI ?
     
  5. Andy Nichols

    Andy Nichols Moderator Staff Member

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    If I may - it's NOT the job of a QA manager to track and report KPIs - that's the job of the Process Owners. WHen you have one person responsible as a process owner and someone else reporting their performance it opens up conflict. This is why so many QA managers aren't appreciated. They are seen as the bringer of bad news. The QA job is to confirm that the results of the process are trustworthy, because the process which produced them has been independently verified.
     
  6. The PPAP Assassin

    The PPAP Assassin Active Member

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    Actually, it can very well be the job of a QA manager to track and report KPI's, especially quality related KPI's. Cost of quality related to sales for whatever period, number of corrective actions / claims, customer satisfaction however the data is collected.. All depending on the requirements of the companies QMS, which can be vastly different from one to another.
     
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  7. Darrell B

    Darrell B New Member

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    Track and report, not compile. Various Key Performance Indicators are compiled by process owners, which then flow to me to report, along with KPI's that I am responsible for. I then write CA's when applicable, etc.
     
  8. Andy Nichols

    Andy Nichols Moderator Staff Member

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    Agreed - in their role of process owner, that is, not as the title of QA Mgr