Make your management system work for you in 3 easy steps

Many organisations have a quality (or environment, or safety) management system. That’s a great thing- it’s like the hidden helper and decision-maker to make our work lives easier.

But I bet you’ve sometimes felt like the system rules your life, rather than you ruling the system. How did it get to be this way? More importantly, how can you change it?

It probably reached this point because auditors have made numerous, well-meaning suggestions (or demands) over the years. And you’ve thought, “I’ll just go along with these suggestions or demands to make my life easier”. Then you end up with something that resembles a Brush Turkey nest: huge, unwieldy, and all for show.

 

Taking stock and simplifying is one element of making your management system work for you. It’s also important to learn how to analyse feedback from auditors critically. We’ve written previously about this.

Here is our 3-step process to making your management system work for you.

Step one: Vision and Mission

If you’re going to go through the task of refining your systems, then it’s always a good thing to start at the top, with a hard reflection of your vision and mission.

Why does your business exist? What are you striving to achieve, and what is the market in which you will offer your products or services?

It’s important to write these things down, even if you’re a one-man band. It will create some clarity for the tasks that follow.

If you did this exercise years ago but have not given these things any thought since you started, now is the time to revisit your vision and mission. A lot may have changed between then and now.

Not only does this make good business sense, but it’s also something that management system standards now include as requirements. I’d suggest you get your beverage of choice and start once you’ve finished reading this article! If you’re part of a bigger organisation and others are responsible for this area, make it your business to find this out – beverages are optional.

Alright, now you have a clear idea of where the business is heading. What next?

Step two: Set your objectives

Think about your objectives for quality, safety, or environmental processes within your organisation. Make these objectives SMART (simple, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely). Importantly, make sure that they are related to your vision and mission.

If your vision is to provide a high-quality testing service, then good objectives would be set around achieving low (but not zero) numbers of nonconformances from QC used in testing processes and a small number of statistical outliers from external quality assurance activities.

Let your staff know what your objectives are. After all, they’re the people who will help you achieve your vision, mission, and objectives. Put your objectives up on the wall for all your staff to see, and reward them when the objectives are met.

Step 3: Review your current management system

The last step is to review your current systems.

Do they help you to achieve your objectives? This task can be bigger than you think, so it’s a good idea to break down the various aspects of your system.

If your objective is to do with your QC outcomes, look at the agility of your system for capturing, reviewing, and acting on QC results. Can it be automated? What system do you have for setting action and warning limits? Be brave and take control!

To get the most out of this exercise, why not do a deep management review which focusses on the suitability of your management systems? It’s a requirement anyway and you’ll feel better for it. Get feedback from your staff about the system (another management review input) and use it to craft a system that works for all of your people.

If you’re not sure where to start with revamping your systems and taking control, contact us at MAS Management Systems.

We have extensive expertise working with clients in developing and redesigning systems, as well as helping business to identify why they’re in business and linking their systems to this higher purpose.

Remember, you don’t have to do this alone!

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