Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Change Management_contd.......



Change Management_contd…….
·                  
  •       Risk analysis and assessment procedure looks at the impact of changes on
o   Quality of products
o   Service performance
o   Delivery to customers
o   Cost of products
  •     Once the impacts are identified, a review of those impacts is necessary for taking decisions
  • ·         Decision making is directly proportional to the scale of impacts on the business
  • ·         The higher the impact, decision making is escalated to the higher levels of management
  • ·         Process for change management has therefore to identify the person responsible to take decisions based on the impact levels
  • ·         The scope of the change management process is upto this level of recording the decisions taken for verification of effectiveness of changes.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Change Management



Change Management
·         Management systems look for processes for managing changes.
·         Business Changes are inevitable in an organization.
·         Changes can be both from external and internal influences.
·         Changes could be both reactive and proactive
·         External changes can be due to the following factors
o   Market conditions
o   Economic conditions
o   Technological changes
o   Competency requirements
o   Etc .,
·         Internal changes can be due to
o   Leadership change
o   Infrastructure
o   Product mix
o   Diversification
o   Strategic requirements
o   Etc.,
·         QMS looks for managing such changes in a controlled manner, although not explicitly. A change management procedure helps in assessing the risks.
·         A step-by-step approach in identifying and assessing the risks involved before implementing the same is required.
·         A few of the changes that would call for risk assessment are given below:
o   Changes in outsourcing criteria, processes, products, services, control methodology, degree of sharing of controls, etc.,
o   Introduction of ERP/configuration management, networking, etc.,
o   Major changes in top management, organization structure
o   Changes in product mix, diversification, marketing structure, customer profile, market conditions, etc.,
o   Changes in skills requirement due to product technologies, new employees not meeting job requirements, exiting of critical employees, etc.,
o   Major changes in infrastructure, utilities, process equipment, machinery ageing, etc.,
o   Technological changes in products, reduction in development cycle times, etc.,
o   Changes in supplier profiles, reevaluation results leading to changes in supplier database, abnormal increase in defects observed during manufacture, changes in component specifications, large scale changes in sourcing of components, etc.,
o   Introduction of new validated processes, deviations in validation requirements, etc.,
o   Major deficiencies identified by customers
o   Major process deficiencies observed leading to major changes in QMS, delays in implementing corrections and corrective actions, ineffective implementation of CAPA's
o   Major defects observed during product verification not meeting defined acceptance criteria, product release without completion of planned arrangements
o   Incomplete and inaccurate maintenance of data base, not maintaining periodicity in data analysis
·         The risk analysis and assessment procedure is required to assess the impact of those changes and take necessary steps

Friday, October 12, 2012

IA Catchwords– Series 10



Outsourced processes control
Process outsourcing has been considered to be an extended arm of any organization, in view of specializations that have set in the various industries. Those processes are well knit in any company’s product/service profile.
Hence, auditing an outsourcing process, is as good and important as any the running processes
The following requirements are to be ensured while auditing outsourced processes
·         Identification of those processes/activities in the Quality Manual
·         Identification of the outsourced process stages, as an integral part of the overall product/service realization – either as a process realization flow or as a quality /process plan
·         Identification of scope of each of those processes, with respect to the products/services rendered by the company
·         Scope shall include list of activities to be carried out by the outsourced agency, and records to be maintained
·         Establishment of control mechanisms to each one of those processes, shall be defined and documented
·         Control mechanism shall to include the 5W and 1H and the applicable QMS clause numbers- activity wise
·         Controls shall include pre-qualification, periodic monitoring & controlling, and re-evaluation
·         Records of the controls shall focus on the process outputs- stage wise, and in line with the requirements of the QMS
·         Controls shall be comprehensive and to include the QMS processes which are common to all the processes, such as control of documents, control of records, defining responsibilities & authorities, control of NC products, etc.,
·         Controls shall include maintenance of records, including the monitoring & control of the processes
·         Control shall include Internal Auditing of the processes, including planning, scheduling, conducting, recording, and follow up of the processes
·         Management review shall include the results of the outsourced processes , with decisions and actions