Quality Management

Quality Management

Quality Management Systems
Quality Management Systems (QMS) is a system comprised of an organizations structure, standard operating procedure (SOP), process procedures, document and records management, the organizations quality objectives and their policies. QMS provides guidance and tools for companies and organizations who want to ensure that their products and or services constantly meet their customers’ requirements and also that their quality is consistently and continually improved. QMS is based on the 8 Principles of Quality. These principles were identified to facilitate the achievement of an organization’s quality goals and to assist in the implementation of an effective QMS. The 8 principles are as follows: customer focus, leadership, involvement of people, process approach, system approach to management, continual improvement, factual approach to decision making, and mutually beneficial supplier relationships. The principles can be used in validating the design of processes, in validating decisions, in auditing system and processes.
ISO9000
ISO9000 is a family of standards which cover multiple aspects of quality management. The ISO9000 family consists of various standards, a few of the standards are as follows. ISO9000- Fundamentals and vocabulary, ISO9001- Requirements of a QMS and ISO9004- Continual improvement. ISO9000 is a generic standard intended to be applicable to all companies and organizations regardless of their type, size or the product they provide. There are over one million companies and organizations worldwide that have implemented, and are compliant with ISO9000. As a quality manager, ISO9000 could be considered a company’s insurance policy.
AUDITS
In order to keep this as simplistic as possible the steps for conducting an audit will be broken down into three basic steps. Auditors should have full comprehension of the steps that are necessary to conduct audits. Planning an audit is the first step in...