During the planning stages of your ISO9001:2000 quality management syste, one of the fairly crucial decisions to make is choosing the management representative to the quality system.
OK, I’ll back up a bit.
Section 5.5 of our favorite quality standard covers “responsibility, authority and communication”. Your company’s management “shall” define and document who is responsible for the quality system, and “shall” properly communicate this throughout your organization.
You must choose who is going to be the “management representative” to the quality system. That is, who’s gonna be in charge of your quality system. So, who’s it gonna be?
A recent client, with no quality system experience whatsoever, had a bit of a struggle trying to figure out who should be in charge of the quality system. With only a dozen people in his company, and no one really in charge of quality, it wasn’t an easy decision.
If you have the type of company where quality is a serious issue, such as an aircraft parts company, medical devices, food products, that type of thing, well your choice is probably obvious. You probably already have someone in charge of quality, and this person is most likely the best person for the job.
If, say, you’re running a florist shop without a dedicated quality engineer, then your choice may not be so easy.
If your choice isn’t obvious, then your management representative to the quality system should be someone in your company who is smart, detail oriented, and not afraid to make a few waves. The company owner is probably not the best choice, although sometimes it might be the the only choice.
Your top management should appoint someone who has management authority, and can get things done. The management representative must have the ability and authority to establish, implement and maintain the quality sytem.
The management representative has the responsibility of reporting to top management on how the quality system is performing, recommending improvements, and promoting awareness of customer requirements to all members of your organization.
Being the management representative to the quality system is not necessarily a full time job. It may take only a few hours a month, depending on your particular situation.
[...] task you must do is appoint a management representative to the quality system, which we’ve discussed recently in another [...]