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Roles & Responsibilities of Top Management in Quality Management System

Roles & Responsibilities of Top Management in Quality Management System

09 Jan 2020

Small businesses get everybody together and also get things done easier. But as the organisation gets bigger, roles may get overlapped. For your consideration, ISO 9001 specifies responsibilities for top management in the quality management system.

 Your organisation may have a CEO, a sales manager, or someone to look after things like the equipment, to manage projects, to do purchasing, manage accounts, etc. Some of these people in position don’t seem to really interact with the customers directly anymore, as the business and the organisation grows, but have a role in ensuring customer satisfaction

ISO 9001:2015 is quite clear about what management responsibilities are. The standard-setting body has a whole section under “5 Leadership”, where each requirement is defined and starts with ‘Top management shall…’. This is different to most other sections of the standard where requirements specified are starting with ‘The organisation shall…’

Top management are assigned the following responsibilities that cannot be delegated. They are –

  • To establish the quality policy
  • To ensure quality objectives fit the strategic direction of the organisation
  • To ensure QMS requirements are integrated into the organisation’s business processes
  • To ensure resources needed for the QMS are available
  • Communicating the importance of the QMS requirements
  • Engaging, directing and supporting people to participate in the QMS
  • Ensure customer and legal requirements are met
  • Ensure that risks and opportunities are identified and addressed
  • Assign responsibility for the QMS, its processes, reporting, and for managing change
  • Review the QMS at planned intervals

Many requirements state ‘ensure…’, which indicates that the top management should oversee these items even if the ‘doing’ have been delegated to other levels. Top management is usually empowered with decision making roles to direct the business forward, structure a framework for the business with processes and the resources and ensure that outputs meet customer needs. This role is a continual task and the system is augmented by the QMS software which can be customized as required. Investing in such software tools benefits everyone in the organisation.

To know more about what AURA, the Quality Management System offers and relevant document or audit management you require, visit our website – http://www.auraqualitymanagement.com/. You can also leave us an enquiry and we’ll get in touch with you.