Question
How should I proceed to get my university ISO 9001 certified? There are nine campuses and a quality manual already exists.
Answer
If I may, let me answer this from my own experience. I worked with an organization that was geographically dispersed. In the US, there was the corporate headquarters, which had top management, sales and marketing, and design. There was also a manufacturing plant in another state. There was a manufacturing plant in Brazil and one in France.
It was decided that top management would own organization-wide processes. This included Internal Audit, which was outsourced. Top management was responsible for strategy, interested parties (also addressed on a local basis), overall quality objectives, risk and opportunity, the process for documented information on a macro level (for example, your quality manual), organizational knowledge, data analysis and management review (each quarter held in a different facility).
The plants did their own purchasing and supplier development, process risk and opportunity, hiring and training, operational control, local control of specific documented information and data reporting. The three manufacturing plants responded well to local autonomy and centralized reporting. Management Review was very rigorous with the CEO and functional vice presidents at each review. Progress toward objectives, monitoring of interested parties, risk and opportunity was stressed. If an objective was lagging, plant managers had to present their corrective action with root cause analysis.
Considering the geographical spread, three languages and different cultures and labor laws, the system was very effective, in large part due to the commitment of the CEO.
The 3rd party auditors, while from the same certification body, were local to the facilities. The lead auditor amassed audit data and presented that to top management with a detailed report.
With applications such as Zoom, considerable travel time and expenses can be saved.
Regards,
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