22.5 Management Responsibility


22.5 Management Responsibility

5.1: Management Commitment

Profile The Growth Corporation (Growth) was established in 1993 as an operating division of the Stable Corporation (Stable), a business enterprise founded in 1985, with corporate offices in Dallas, Texas. Growth has been charged by Stable's board of directors to develop and market hardware and software accelerator boards for data acquisition purposes across a very wide range of commercial and industrial applications. Due to successful achievements of specific productivity and profitability goals, Growth became a wholly owned subsidiary of Stable in 2000.

Growth's first series of microlayered board, box, and subsystem components were very well received by OEMs and this allowed the company to rapidly increase sales over the past seven years. Growth's ANSI/ISO/ASQC Q9001-1994 certification in 1998 was indicative of the division's desire to continue this impressive growth in concert with increased quality and with customer satisfaction foremost in mind. Today, Growth will take the next step to total quality management as it upgrades its quality management system to the 2000 version of the Standard.

Vision Growth's vision is to be the leading supplier of microlayered board, box, and subsystem technology for imaging systems.

Mission To achieve this goal, Growth will

  • Work to continue to increase its partnership basis with customers to satisfy their technological needs;

  • Continue to design products that meet the customer's explicit and implicit requirements;

  • Manufacture products that are delivered against the customer's on-time requirements;

  • Respond quickly and thoroughly to customer complaints and service requests;

  • Maintain an effective ANSI/ISO/ASQC Q9001-2000 quality management system that also complies with the applicable clauses of the ANSI/ ISO/ASQC Q9000-3-1997 computer software guidelines;

  • Meet its financial goals in agreement with Stable's corporate requirements;

  • Provide a responsive, rewarding work environment for its employees.

Business Objectives To satisfy our mission requirements, Growth will

  • Periodically survey our customers to establish both satisfaction and dissatisfaction levels;

  • Follow a strict regimen of hardware and software design reviews;

  • Track first pass test yields and returned product rates;

  • Carry out an intense program of vendor/subcontractor evaluation;

  • Perform an extensive activity in corrective and preventive action and customer complaint response.

  • Closely monitor our financial goals.

A more detailed discussion of quality objectives is found in Section 5.4.1 of this manual.

Communication of the Quality Policy and Its Status Growth uses several means to propagate its quality policies to all employees. Aside from the monthly top management meetings, such methods include

  • The assignment of champions who establish quality teams to document, implement, and demonstrate the continuing effectiveness of the quality management system (refer to Growth's champion summary maintained by the ISO 9000 management representative) Champions.Doc

  • Weekly business review meetings by each top manager with his or her staff;

  • The monthly newsletter;

  • Quarterly business presentations by the GEMT to all employees;

  • Posting of the quality policy in key areas of the facilities;

  • Highlighting statutory and regulatory requirements to employees through the newsletter, policies, and procedures, and as part of the quarterly GEMT presentation;

  • Reviewing the quality policy in the same manner (refer to Section 5.3 of this manual);

  • Presenting quality objectivesas part of the business plan (refer to Section 5.4.1 of this manual);

  • Holding quarterly management reviews by the GEMT to examine progress against targets (refer to Section 5.6 of this manual);

  • Providing resources by means of the business plan and constantly reviewing the operation in the series of meetings described (refer to Section 6.1 of this manual).

5.2: Customer Focus

The vice president of sales and marketing is responsible for customer satisfaction management. The method used to determine and enhance customer satisfaction and determine and minimize customer dissatisfaction includes customer surveys, customer service feedback, and feedback from the sales offices in the form of weekly reports (refer to Sections 7.2.1 and 8.2.1 of this manual).

5.3: Quality Policy

start sidebar
Growth Corporation's Quality Policy

The Growth Corporation (Growth) is committed, at all levels of the company, to total customer satisfaction. To meet this commitment, we provide products and services that fulfill customer expectations and provide quality at levels greater than what is available from any of our competitors.

Our quality management system is based on the ANSI/ISO/ASQC Q9001-2000 international standard and is supplemented by the applicable clauses of the ANSI/ISO/ASQC Q9000-3-1997 computer software guidelines.

Growth is fully committed to continually improving the effectiveness of our system by means of constant top management review and oversight. This level of attention is complemented by formal management reviews in which the QMS is reviewed for continuing suitability, internal audits, extensive training, and an aggressive corrective and preventive action program that includes cross-functional teams for root-cause analysis and problem resolution.

To ensure the integrity of our system, quantitative quality objectives based on operational metrics are established, monitored, measured, and reviewed by managers who are held accountable for their results. In addition, all of our employees are thoroughly trained in our quality policy and quality management methods and are supplied with the resources required to ensure that such methods are effective.

At Excellent, business objectives and quality objectives are synonymous.

Signed: Fran Dewolf

President and CEO

The Growth Corporation

Dated: January 1, 2002

end sidebar

Quality Policy Communication The methods used by Growth to communicate the quality policy to all employees is covered in Section 5.1 of this manual.

5.4: Planning

5.4.1: Quality Objectives

As previously mentioned, the GEMT formulates quality objectives, their metrics, and targets as part of the annual Growth Business Plan. We also listed a number of business objectives that were required to satisfy our mission statement. In this section, we will quantify these primary objectves and add additional objectives that supplement that set. The establishment of primary objectives and support objectives is the means by which quality objectives flow down through all pertinent Growth functions. Table 22.1 is a sample of some of the critical objectives set by Growth. The complete set of business/quality objectives can be viewed through this icon. GBP.Doc

Table 22.1: Growth's Quality Objectives Matrix

Marketing and Sales Primary and Supporting Quality Objective(s)

Primary: maximize customer satisfaction and minimize customer dissatisfaction levels

Metric

Target

Champion

Intranet location

Percentage of customers who reorder per year

100%

Vice president of sales and marketing

SandMreorder.xls

First support objective: survey customer opinions on overall performance

Metric

Target

Champion

Intranet location

Number of returned surveys versus surveys

mailed

>50%

Manager of direct sales

SandMsurveys.xls

Design Engineering Primary and Supporting Quality Objective(s)

Primary: on-time hardware and software design reviews

Metric

Target

Champion

Intranet location

Percentage of design reviews versus plan per project

100%

Vice president of design engineering

DesignReview.xls

First support objective: projects completed on time against plan

Metric

Target

Champion

Intranet location

Percentage of project completed versus plan per project

>80%

Project engineers

EngProjects.xls

Manufacturing Primary and Supporting Quality Objective(s)

Primary: ship product as specified by the customer-agreed-to shipping date

Metric

Target

Champion

Intranet location

Percentage of shipments that meet ship date

>95%

Vice president of manufacturing

Shipping.xls

First Support Objective: Reduce NCMRs in assembly

Metric

Target

Champion

Intranet location

Number of NCMRs per product line

Zero

Assembly supervisors

NCMRs.xls

Second support objective: optimize first pass yields

Metric

Target

Champion

Intranet location

First pass yields per product line

80%

Vice president of manufacturing

Product Yields.xls

Third support objective: optimize vendor/subcontractor evaluation on-time deliveries

Metric

Target

Champion

Intranet location

Vendor percentage on-time deliveries

>98%

Purchasing supervisor

VendorsOT.xls

Fourth support objective: optimize response to nonconformities

Metric

Target

Champion

Intranet location

Response time to resolve nonconformities

Minimal

Vice president of quality assurance

NCRTime.xls

Customer Service Primary and Supporting Quality Objective(s)

Primary: minimize returned product rates

Metric

Target

Champion

Intranet location

Percentage of returned goods versus total field population per product line

<1.0%

Vice president of manufacturing

ReturnRate.xls

First support objective: optimize final test protocols

Metric

Target

Champion

Intranet location

Percentage of critical functions tested

100%

Project engineers

CriticalTests.xls

5.4.2: Quality Management System Planning

Quality Planning As previously discussed, Growth's president and CEO is responsible for the annual development and publication of the business plan. The business plan is the framework within which the quality objectives, quality plans, quality policies, and changes to such activities are formulated as part of Growth's continual improvement directives. To ensure the overall integrity of the GCQMS, all QMS changes are subject to review and approval of the GEMT and become an integral part of the business plan. Section 7.1 of this manual provides more detail on this subject.

Corporate and Interdivisional Interfaces The Growth Corporation interfaces with other Stable Corporate facilities. In those cases where Growth provides services to other facilities, the transactions are performed exactly as if Growth were selling its services to a customer. In those cases where Growth receives services from another facility, the transactions are performed as if Growth obtained material from a vendor or subcontractor. In addition, the functions of financial analysis and information technology are shared directly with Stable. In such cases, the transactions are covered in procedures controlled by Growth.

5.5: Responsibility, Authority, and Communication

5.5.1: Responsibility and Authority

The following organizational chart (Figure 22.4) indicates the functional relationships of all personnel in Growth along with the indicators (Figure 22.5) that summarize which employees have the responsibility and authority to manage, perform, and verify work-affecting quality. The organizational structure and indicators are posted in the cafeteria and presented during the quarterly GEMT presentations.

click to expand
Figure 22.4: Organizational structure of growth.

click to expand
Figure 22.5: Responsibility and authority legend for growth.

With regard to verification, all employees of Growth are required to constantly monitor their work to ensure that all quality requirements have been satisfied.

In addition, as indicated in Figure 22.1, the process champions also serve as ISO 9000 stewards, where each steward is responsible for the effective documentation, implementation, and demonstration of effectiveness for their processes.

President's Direct Report Management Responsibilities

President and CEO Responsible for developing and overseeing the execution of Growth's annual operating budget and managing the successful implementation of that budget. As the top executive, the president is required to articulate Growth's long-term strategies and to serve as the primary interface between the corporation and the board of directors.

Vice President Sales and Marketing Required to achieve the annual domestic and international sales quotas and direct the efforts of the sales personnel, program managers, customer service, and the Washington, DC, and Seattle, WA, sales offices. The position also requires the creation and implementation of the marketing plan, which includes media contact, direct mail, trade show activities, and OEM contacts.

Vice President of Design Engineering Serves as the chief engineer for Growth and is responsible for the development of the company's product lines. This activity includes synthesizing customer requests for product development and the general oversight of all aspects of hardware and software design functions. Process and continuing engineering as well as engineering services, bid control, and engineering documentation are directly controlled through this position.

Controller Creates and generates all financial information for internal and external users and is responsible for financial planning and management of the accounting functions. The controller is the primary interface with the chief financial officer at Stable.

Vice President of Quality Assurance Serves as the ISO 9000 management representative for Growth and manages all phases of quality assurance, quality control, and reliability engineering. The position also requires the oversight of the policy, process, procedural, and format document control for Growth.

Vice President of Manufacturing Responsible for the management of the production, materials control, and all purchasing for Growth. This position includes the functions of inventory management, the evaluation of vendors, and the support of prototype product builds.

MIS Manager Responsible for the design and implementation of all phases of the information technology system at Growth and is the primary contact with the corporate information technology officer (CITO) at Stable. The MIS manager controls the day-to-day effectiveness and backup systems for the division.

5.5.2: Management Representative

Appointment The president of Growth has appointed the vice president of quality assurance to continue as the ISO 9000 management representative during and after the 2000 upgrade effort. Notice of this appointment was effective on the first day of February, 2001, and distributed to all employees of Growth via the cafeteria posting. Such duties remain in addition to the usual activities of the vice president of quality assurance.

Duties of the ISO 9000 Management Representative In this position, the representative has the authority to establish, implement, and maintain an effective ANSI/ISO/ASQC Q9001-2000 quality management system within Growth, subject only to the review of the GEMT.

The duties of the ISO 9000 management representative include the establishment and management of our plan to meet the established upgrade certification timelines and to provide any necessary direction to the ISO documentation teams. The representative reports to the GEMT at the management review meetings on the status of the QMS in the areas of at least

  • Progress against our goals and objectives;

  • Internal quality audits;

  • Corrective and preventive actions and customer complaints;

  • Training;

  • The state of documentation and implementation of the quality management system;

  • Any need for QMS improvement.

Thus, the appropriate actions can be taken to continually improve the system.

Registrar Interface The ISO 9000 representative also maintains close contact with our accredited registrar, and finalizes the dates for the off-site document review and on-site certification upgrade assessment.

Ensure QMS Integrity In addition, the representative ensures the efficacy of the QMS by directly taking part in the internal quality audit and corrective and preventive action programs within Growth. The representative uses the internal audit program as one means to check on the integrity of QMS processes.

Ensure Employee Customer Awareness The representative participates in new employee orientation programs to make sure that all employees are aware of Growth's customer requirements. To further enhance this effort, the representative publishes updates in the monthly newsletter on customer acceptance of Growth's performance and posts performance-against-targets graphs on the cafeteria post board.

5.5.3: Internal Communications

As we have previously discussed, to measure QMS effectiveness and continual improvement, internal communication at Growth is spearheaded through the use of quality objectives, metrics, and targets at all pertinent levels of the corporation. The flow of information throughout Growth is enhanced by highly effective engineering and manufacturing software applications programs on the Growth intranet, as well as the use of the cafeteria post board and the monthly newsletter. Other communication tools at employees disposal include e-mail and a series of weekly, monthly, and quarterly managementled review meetings.

5.6: Management Review

Quarterly Review

The ISO 9000 management review is held quarterly and is chosen from one of the monthly top management meetings attended by the GEMT. At this meeting, the total business performance is reviewed and the suitability, adequacy, and effectiveness of the ANSI/ISO/ASQC Q9001-2000 QMS is determined and the necessary actions taken to improve its performance.

Review Inputs The agenda for the review is set by the president and includes, but is not limited to, the following [the presentation of such data is by the appropriate attendees]:

  • Total corrective and preventive action and customer complaints program, including an analysis of process performance and product conformity and nonconformities and customer feedback;

  • Results of the total auditing program (first, second, and third party);

  • Review of quality objectives as compared to plan;

  • Currency of the training program;

  • Establishment of opportunities for improvement (OFIs) that are then presented to action teams for resolution;

  • Consideration of any need for changes to the QMS;

  • Recommendations for improvement, especially as they relate to the quality policy and quality objectives;

  • Report on follow-up actions from previous reviews.

Review Outputs The minutes for this meeting are written and maintained by the administrative assistant to the president. GEMTMinutes.Doc

The minutes contain, in addition to the report summaries, GEMT decisions and actions that consider:

  • Methods to improve the effectiveness of the QMS and its processes for possible action team assignments;

  • Possible product improvements based on customer specifications that could be assigned to design engineering;

  • Possible redistribution of resources to enhance process and product performance for assignment to department heads.

Supplementary Reviews Monthly department manager reviews and weekly operational-level reviews are also held as a way to analyze the effectiveness of the system on a much finer grid than over 3 months. Minutes of such reviews are also maintained by the pertinent manager or supervisor and the key information collected at such meetings is funneled into the quarterly review, as appropriate.

Joint Software Reviews Growth's software development protocol requires a close interaction with its customers in the form of jointly reviewed conformance to customer specifications. Conformance is based on software acceptance testing at both Growth and the customer's facility. The vice president of design engineering schedules and manages this activity.




ISO 9001(c) 2000 Quality Management System Design
ISO 9001: 2000 Quality Management System Design
ISBN: 1580535267
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 155

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net