After a little while Major Vaik makes an observation, almost lost in amongst a string of other observations, that "Top management should emphasise that the number of NCs raised against a department would not be seen as a mark of inefficiency". Now we begin to disagree. Not totally, but we do disagree. The point Major Vaik makes is, in spirit, valid. We suspect that he recognises that if the audit results are used in a punitive way, then co-operation will reduce and people will develop ways of hiding things as a defence mechanism. We can't argue that this does not happen. However the simple truth will always be that the number of non-conformities raised against a department may well be an indicator of inefficiency, whether we like it or not, and to ignore the plain truth may be almost as bad in quality terms as adopting a punitive approach. Additionally trying to convince management that it is not an indicator of efficiency is likely to lead to still more confusion at that level as to what the hell QA is all about, and there's enough of that already. So what is the answer?
Maybe the answer lies in repeat problems. As auditors (and managers) we shouldn't be too hard on people for making mistakes (depending on what they are, of course), we all make them, but the key principle in the use of internal audits as management information and a driver for improvement is that root cause corrective action takes place. That is, that the audit results are used as an opportunity to learn. So we don't come down too hard on people who make mistakes, but we might treat people who fail to learn from their mistakes differently. That is just good management practice, and something the senior team and operations alike should not struggle to buy into
It is quite a balancing act, of course, but we do have to recognise that the balance is there to be identified and applied. If we become too relaxed over the frequency and nature of our non-conformities, then the time consuming process for the identification of them (the audit) becomes a complete waste
There is an often overlooked dynamic in all of this. ISO 9001 requires top management to "be committed to this" and "support that" and to be "actively involved" in the other. This often leads to a situation where senior managers with their hearts in the right place will do and say whatever the Quality Manager tells them in order to be seen to "support the QMS", without ever really understanding what that means in terms of value adding words and deeds. There is often a learning point for the Quality Department here. Basic quality concepts are simple and link closely to the fundamental economic concepts of the business world, so the leap of understanding required between these two species should be a small one to take
The interpretation of ISO, however, always appears to be that the poor senior managers must learn the language of "quality" and if they don't understand ISO they are "not committed". Let's face it, how often do we here Quality Managers moaning that the senior team "are not committed to ISO?" Well, why should they be? Their commitment should be to the share holders and to delivering results. ISO 9001 is simply a means to an end, a tool applied by the business (along with countless others) to manage certain activities. Dare we suggest that Quality Managers could do the reaching and translate the "quality" requirements into the language of business and economics?
Processes need to join up. Audits, performed correctly, can provide valuable management information, and we need to design the audit process to do just that. This "design" should involve thinking through how we will handle our results and how we deal with non-conformities and especially repeat offenders. The process will always work more efficiently if all parties understand and appreciate the point and value of it. If that understanding isn't there, we'll only ever have an awkward or cosmetic compromise. A mechanism for demonstrating a basic conformance to clause 8.2.2, if you will
Until that time that we get to the position where we speak the same language, we do need to find a way to communicate in the meantime and somewhere along the line common sense has to kick in
