Management Review
ISO 9001:2015 Clause 9.3 Management Review
Management review is another one of my favorite activities when it comes to management systems. It is a great opportunity to take a step back and review the effectiveness of all the work that you have done, to take stock. Not just annually either as many are in the habit of doing, I say as often as possible and with as many of the key staff involved as possible.
Management Review – General
So, the Top Management of your Organization (as per the scope of your QMS) must review your Quality Management System, to ensure that it is suitable, adequate, and effective. So. let’s start there with a description of what those terms mean and what we are looking for:
- Suitable – Suitability is the fitness of the quality management system for its defined purpose. For example, is the system suitable to direct and control activities of the organization to achieve its quality policy, quality objectives and intended outcomes?
- Adequate – Adequacy is the sufficiency of the quality management system to meet requirements. For example, is the system adequate to satisfy the applicable ISO 9001, contractual, organizational, and regulatory requirements?
- Effective – Effectiveness is the extent to which planned activities are accomplished and the planned results are achieved. For example, to what degree is the system achieving process compliance, product conformity, and customer satisfaction?
Another regular question is, “what is planned intervals”? Basically, the standard puts the decision in your hands as to how regularly you hold your management review.
Management Review – Inputs
During the review of your QMS, the standard requires you to cover certain minimum requirements. These minimum requirements can become part of the meeting agenda.
Issues for review:
- Actions from previous minutes – what has been suitably addressed or not?
- Organizational context including external and internal issues – changes to the scope or internal & external issues?
- Feedback on customer satisfaction – Results of customer satisfaction, trends and actions?
- Quality objectives and their status – is the business on track with its objectives and planning to achieve them?
- Process performance, including conformity of products and services
- Provide feedback on your business process performance – this may be production throughput etc
- Provide feedback on product performance – sales and quality
- Provide feedback on service performance – sales and quality of service
- Status and actions relative to non-conformance and corrective action – how many issues have been reported, how many are closed
- Audit results – audit objectives, audit conclusions, audit program review
- Supplier performance – number of supplier reviews completed and the results and actions taken
- Sufficiency of resources – based on current and future business needs
- Risks and opportunities and the status of action plans – are you on track with your risk and opportunity action plans
- Improvements – continual improvement opportunities
My approach to management review is to prepare a presentation, providing an overview of the entire QMS, relative information, data and trends for discussion with the team with the view to deciding on improvement opportunities.
Management Review – Outputs
Outputs to the management review, such as decisions and actions can be recorded in your management review minutes (as you are required to retain documented evidence of management reviews):
- Opportunities to improve your QMS, such as adding new processes
- Any need for changes to the QMS, such as updating SOP’s
- Additional resources may be needed due to increased production. Note resources can be in the form of hardware, software, finances, and people to name but a few.
Use SHEQ software
To design and implement a Quality Management System, SRM and many of our clients use Mango Compliance Software – www.mangolive.com Mango makes it easier to obtain ISO 9001:2015 certification and to perform your management reviews.
In Summary
Management Review is such an incredible opportunity to review and improve your work, having all the decision-makers in the room, can help deliver an effective meeting with tangible benefits. Consider the following in your own management reviews.
- Plan and schedule your Management Reviews
- Take time to prepare a presentation of the various issues to be reviewed
- Interrogate the information to assess the suitability, adequacy, and effectiveness of your QMS
- Record your decisions and improvements opportunities in your meeting minutes
SRM, is ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015 and ISO 45001:2018 certified. Contact our consultants today. Let us know if we can help you with the development and implementation of your Quality Management System.
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https://srmc.co.za/iso-certifications/
