(7 Support, 7.1 Resources) 7.1.1 General
Welcome back to the discussion everyone! Your input and feedback is helpful in how this discussion is created each week and it’s exciting to hear about the progress many of you are making.
In previous weeks, we’ve worked through clauses about identifying the organization and its context, customers and interested parties, the key processes needed to create a product or service which meets the organization’s (and its interested parties’ needs), and the objectives of each of those processes to ensure the quality management system is maintained effectively.
Now that all that planning has been completed and the organization has created methods for consistently communicating, monitoring and reporting on the objectives, there must be a plan to provide the resources needed to achieve the objectives. Specifically the standard states “the organization shall determine and provide the resources needed for the establishment, implementation, maintenance and continual improvement of the quality management system”. And it goes on to give guidance on what shall be considered:
a) the capabilities of, and constraints on, existing internal resources
b) what needs to be obtained from external providers
This section uses an economy of words to say quite a bit about a critical planning activity that is sometimes overlooked. This lack of planning can result in unplanned problems and an inability to respond to changing market conditions. An organization must understand its capabilities and constraints and what it must rely on outside providers for those gaps in its internal capabilities.
Beginning with the capabilities and constraints of its existing internal resources, it is important to recognize that this will come up again later in this section as the standard does a nice job of rolling out this section just a little at a time. This first subclause makes one think of the equipment, time, money, physical capabilities (in the aggregate) of the organization. And each subclause after will give more specifics to exactly what should be considered. This presents an opportunity for those utilizing lean and Six Sigma to introduce the use of those tools into the quality management system to ensure the system, process and its tools are clearly defined.
For those of you who thought the QMS and a Continuous Improvement program are separate, independent activities, you might want to take a moment and think about the possibility of integrating them. Whatever works best for your organization is of course, your organization’s prerogative. But for companies simultaneously maintaining certification to ISO9001 and attempting to improve their processes through a separate initiative of lean and Six Sigma, this is a good opportunity to join forces and create a robust QMS with a great arsenal of tools to achieve your objectives and continually challenge them.
But even after the organization has determined its capabilities, it must also deal with any gaps in those capabilities by soliciting help from outside. This subclause, too, comes up again in more detail later. As the planning is done and external support is needed, there must be controls in the quality management system to ensure the outside processes are closely monitored.
The section, overall, is very similar to the language to ISO9001:2008, but the additional detail is helpful to give the guidance needed to more completely plan for and provide the resources needed.
THIS WEEK’S HOMEWORK
Take a look at your quality management system as it stands today. Have you truly adopted a process approach? (ie. are all your necessary processes clearly identified?). Have you created a quality plan identifying the objectives of each of the processes and a plan to achieve them? Use this to identify the resources needed to support each of the processes and their objectives. And identify where you will need help from the outside. Put a plan together to manage those resources as well.
As you complete this exercise, be sure to share your discoveries. Having done this activity, did you identify any hidden resource needs?
