Looking for help with your Quality
                          Manual and Procedures?

Since winning the Baldrige in 1996 and being designated as the company spokesman, I have been privileged to visit many organizations throughout the US (and beyond) speaking about both Baldrige and ISO-9000. Now that I am on my own, I still get requests. Of the many questions I have been asked, the most frequent have been about documenting a Quality Management System, especially for a small business. My response is always in two parts: the old standby: "Say what you do, Do what you say." The second part: "Keep it simple!"

Understanding that part seems to be the kicker for some. AQS recently received an e-mail from a gentleman in England who felt they might be doing something wrong. He stated that while "the guts" of the procedure was only a few paragraphs long, the procedure itself was over 5 pages.

The first question is "Who is going to READ this?" The second is, "Who is going to REMEMBER this?" Your procedures should be written for everyone in the organization to understand and use. You are not writing them to satisfy an auditor, you are writing them to help your organization improve. The average newspaper is written for an 8th grade education. Take your hint from there.

Quality Manual Writing
The first rule to writing a quality manual is: Keep It Simple!!! That's also Rule #2 and Rule #3. You are writing a technical manual, not the great American Novel. It must reflect what you do but remember, the manual itself is a guideline. You don't have to put every detail in the manual, leave that for the procedures.

The next rule: reference the procedure or form you are discussing in the manual. You can not say, "XYZ Company does calibration." You have to tell your people exactly what procedure you are referring to: "XYZ Company conducts regular calibrations per CALIBSOP-200." Please pay attention to the numbering system. It is simple and it is easy for employees to find if the need arises. It also helps the person in charge of Document Control when procedures or forms must be replaced with newer revisions. Easy to read, easy to find. That's the key. 

The final rule is to always remember that you are NOT writing this for an ISO auditor. You are writing this for your company, and most especially, the people on the front lines. They are the ones who will have to follow the guidelines and rules you are establishing.

Procedure Writing
Keep all procedures as simple as possible. The more complicated procedures are, the less they are understood and followed.

It is also very difficult to write a procedure while sitting at your desk. Your perception of what the procedure "should" be is probably a mile off from what the procedure actually is. Go out to the front lines and watch what is going on. Use process mapping and flow charts to define the current state of a procedure with the employees who are actually doing the job. They will help you weed out the non-value added steps. The actual procedure is usually something between what you "think" it should be and what they are "actually" doing.

We have included a sample section from a Quality Manual and some of the procedures and forms to use as guides. Notice the linkage and the wording in both the manual and procedure. They never say one "should" do something. Procedures state exactly what "must" be done.

Sounds repetitious, but I can't stress it enough. Keep it as simple as you can.

If you have questions or comments, please feel free to contact us with your individual questions.