9.3 Management Review

This week’s topic is near and dear to my heart.  Every business I’ve worked with has underutilized this tool.  Many companies do it simply to meet the requirement, and do not fu...

9.2 Internal audit (9.2.1, 9.2.2)

This week is a double feature to include the entire 9.2 Internal audit clause.  Internal audits are one of the most underutilized tools in management systems.  The w...

9.1.2 Customer satisfaction

Let me start this week’s discussion with the observation that this section is awkwardly constructed (in my opinion).  The section introduces itself as being about performa...

9 Performance evaluation

9.1.1 General

We are starting to enter the place where organizations can lose their way and ultimately miss out on the intended value-add they’re looking for when they decid...

8.7 Control of nonconforming outputs

This week’s topic is one that is very clearly defined and universally applicable.  There is very little subjectivity in the requirements and they are listed in a ...

8.6 Release of products and services

This week’s topic, “release of products and services” is a nuts and bolts component of most quality systems.  As products and services are manufactured or created...

8.5.6 Control of changes

This clause is critical and essential and, excluding the clear definition of requirements in the first place, the biggest risk, in my opinion to the stability of the QMS.  Ch...

8.5.5 Post-delivery activities

This requirement is not new, but it is a little different.  Whereas previously, the requirements were sprinkled in other clauses and pretty unclear, they are now more c...

8.5.4 Preservation

Why don’t we just put our feet up this week?  We’re not even going to break a sweat.  Not only is the section easy, but there isn’t much in the way of changes.

“The organization s...

8.5.3 Property belonging to customers or external providers

This week, we’ll discuss some of the situations when organizations along the whole supply chain cooperate in order to produce a product or ...