Context of the Organization

Hello!! I am a new member. Very glad to have found this forum. It appears there are a lot of resources here.

Question: Context of the Organization (Clause 4) in the new standard..

4.2 Understanding the need and expectations of interested parties

-When listing out "interested parties" can we be vague? Or do we need to go into exact detail, such as naming certain customers or suppliers? Or can we just say "customers" and "suppliers"?
-Note: Instead of listing out "the requirements of these interested parties" in my C.O.T.E. template, I just made a category, "reason for interest". Should be kosher! I hope.

Thanks!

 

I created one in excel. It's pretty basic. I guess I could have used the word "table". But there are 2 of them. One for listing out interested parties, and the reason for their interest and another one for identifying internal and external issues.

 

Thank you. That is exactly how I gathered the data. The last management review I held, I went around the room asking questions and I took notes. I was just wondering how specific I need to be with who the interested parties are. I use SWOT charts for identifying strategic risk, maybe I can make one for COTO. I appreciate it!

 

Welcome to the forum The PPAP Assassin! You will find some very knowledgeable people in this forum, such as Andy. I am lucky to have come across it.

For mine, I made a COTO Log in Excel. I have other tabs in this log such as: Risks, Opportunities, and my Interested Parties.


For the Interested Parties, I set a meeting with my manager and we reviewed over some items. We laid out the Interested Parties using very basic names like Suppliers, Customers, Local Community..ect. We also identified whether they were internal or external, the reason they are considered an interested party, and measurements/metrics that are affiliated to them.


Not sure if this has helped in any way. I'm still learning myself.

 

I also included a column to demonstrate how we monitor and review them I.e. NCR's, OH&S Incidents etc... to satisfy the last line of the clause..."The organization shall monitor and review information about these interested parties and their relevant requirements"

 

I kept mine decently vague, but we also in our last management review (first one since starting to upgrade to the 2015 standard) we discussed in detail our interested parties, and some of the "larger" risks our company will be faced with in the next coming years
i.e. tribal knowledge (we have an older workforce who has really all been with the company 20+ years) and really making sure we have the younger generation in place here learning major things that we don't want our "older" guys taking with them when they retire"
I actually mentioned to them that we may want to make a knowledge matrix, to make sure we don't have any huge gaps (we just recently had someone retire who had been here for almost 30 years, and the person who replaced him is brand new to the company so it's been interesting haha)

For the context of the organization, I really stressed that we kind of discuss these items at our management review, especially the internal and external factors.
so for example the external factor that may be our biggest risk (Canadian company, who mostly does work for American automotive) is the new president and if he is going to implement higher taxes for incoming goods or what not. Something that we cannot control at all, but it's definitely been on our radar.

 

I should have specified, I kept my interested parties section in our updated quality manual vague. I mostly mentioned that it is discussed at management reviews.. This could change however after our external audit in the fall. But our auditors are pretty laid back, and I *hope* if they do say anything it would just be noted as an improvement opportunity

 

When we had our Strategic Planning session to set the strategic directions of the company, we considered the following:

• internal and external issues (i.e. context) - as inputs to our SWOT analysis;
• needs and expectations of interested parties - when we set objectives to support the strategic directions

The outputs of the Strategic Planning (i.e. strategic directions) were utilized as inputs to our Operational Planning. On this level of planning, specific measurable objectives were determined as part of each department's performance plans. The departments' performance plans are then supported by tactics (i.e. plan of actions). Risks and opportunities were also analyzed during the Operational Planning to determine controls on our processes.

Below is our concept of QMS Planning:

 

This was very helpful! I might borrow some of these ideas. Thank you

 

Very helpful and detailed! I will take this into consideration and think about having my own strategic planning session here as a means to cover COTO requirements as well as to enhance general continual improvement.

-Started a new job 3 weeks ago. All we do here is coil buffing/ polishing, cut to length, grinding and slitting. Design exclusion and it's not even our material, we just process it. They do need help with their QMS though as it is very basic and outdated. Hence why I am here. I am so happy to be in a stress free non-design and non-automotive environment. The best QA jobs are ones like these I'll tell ya.. You couldn't pay me 150k to go back to automotive.. ha!

 

Good for you!

 

COTO log was used here as well. Simple and easy to update and review during Management Review.

 

What scares me is that the CB auditor, who bought into the idea of a log, will expect every organization must have it.

 

Any chance you could screen shot me a blank version of your COTO log?