7.5 Documented information, 7.5.1 General “Say what you do and do what you say”?  That’s the old adage, I suppose.  But what does it mean, really?  Does the ISO9001 standard require that we document everything we do?  Has it ever required that? The 2015 revision changes “documentation” into “documented information” for clarification.  And it still…

Read More

7.4 Communication In the immortal words of both Strother Martin and Paul Newman in the movie “Cool Hand Luke”, “What we have here is a failure to communicate!”. Communication is perhaps the absolute bedrock of every organization.  Poor communication leads to chaos, poor performance, poor morale and other bad things.  Good communication can foster a sense…

Read More

7.3 Awareness Persons doing work under the organization’s control shall be aware of: a)  the quality policy; b)  relevant objectives; c)  their contribution to the effectiveness of the quality management system, including the benefits of improved quality performance; d)  the implications of not conforming with the quality management system requirements. This is one of my…

Read More

7.2 Competence Last week’s discussion was about “organizational knowledge” as a required resource.  We defined what sort of knowledge was required to successfully perform our processes and create a good product/service.  This week, we will discuss how we assess our required organizational knowledge versus what we actually have in terms of competence and then what…

Read More

7.1.6 Organizational knowledge Well, here we are at week 19 already!  I hope you’re enjoying the discussion thus far.  I have really enjoyed hearing everyone’s input (and on topics OTHER than risk based thinking!)  There’s a lot more to this revision than just that one hot topic! Like I’ve mentioned in previous weeks, I’m still…

Read More

7.1.5 Monitoring and measuring resources Welcome back to the discussion everyone!  This is a rather wordy section, so let’s get right into it! 7.1.5 starts with “Where monitoring or measuring is used for evidence of conformity of products and services to specified requirements the organization shall determine the resources needed to ensure valid and reliable monitoring…

Read More

7.1.4 Environment  In Week 15, we glossed quickly over “People as a resource”, due to the structure of ISO9001:2015, and we discussed how weird the layout is in this section.  We also debated heavily the term “resource” and everyone was very passionate about the inclusion of people in the discussion.  In Week 16, the standard…

Read More

7.1.3 Infrastructure  Boy oh boy!  Last week really got people talking.  “People talking about people” is always exciting.  Many of you made the point that the most important resource is always the people, without whom none of the other resources are relevant.  I couldn’t agree more.  There was also some debate about how organizations (and…

Read More