Since introduction of AS9100 Standard for quality management systems the market has developed numerous models of quality manuals for organizations with single sites. At the same time, formats for management system structures for multi-facility businesses are limited at best in technical publications. This paper discusses a model for structuring a top-level documentation that allows an organization with multiple sites to use common AS9100 quality management system manual. Discussed approach noticeably improves consistency of the organization’s quality policies and commitments to comply with applicable regulatory requirements.

Through my work as a Lead Auditor with major registrars, I observed dozens of large multi-location companies struggling with connecting their corporate AS9100 quality manuals with the supporting, location-specific, procedures. To develop a quality manual for a company with numerous facilities, organizations take two routes. Some organizations create site-specific quality manuals as copies of the corporate manual; others create site-specific AS9100 quality manuals that are entirely different from the corporate manual.

In reality, these solutions do not provide for a consistent representation of the organization’s position on quality. The first approach, when a copy of the home office quality manual is used, techniques for controlling local quality manuals are usually not determined. Differences in the corporate manual and the site’s quality manual are because the corporate office manuals are managed by the home office, while site’s manuals are controlled by individual sites.

In the case of companies choosing their facilities to develop their own AS9100 manuals, discrepancies in numerous quality manuals result in visible differences between the home office and facilities’ quality manuals.

Those companies that adhere to the policy of maintaining a consistent corporate message regarding their position on quality will definitely experience a gap if they use methods that we discussed above.

Summarizing my consulting experience, I am convinced that these approaches to design of the corporate quality manual and sites’ manuals do not provide a solid consistent way to document organization’s AS9100 quality management systems.

Fortunately, there is a solution. Let us review an example of AS9100 2008 quality manual model that references supporting procedures. Our quality manual references supporting documents within the text of the manual. For example, element 4.2.1, Documentation requirements, general, may read: Your Company, Inc.’s QMS documentation includes: documented statements of the quality policy per the Quality Policy and quality objectives per the Key Performance Indicator Matrix (KPIM),

This method of referencing supporting procedures is very common for quality manuals for companies with single location. Interestingly, it also works for a multi-site business for those documents that are common for all sites. For instance, Audit Procedure, CAPA Procedure, Calibration Procedure and others may be the common for your all sites and be referenced in your quality manual as demonstrated in previous paragraph.

But, what if your company sites use their own service procedures, incoming inspection procedures, in-process test criteria and other unique documents different form corporate procedures? Let us examine how an organization’s AS9100 quality manual can reference corporate and site-specific procedures.

A method identical to a single-site organization can be used when the number of facilities is relatively small, let’s say 2 – 3. For example, clause 5.2, Customer focus, of our AS9100 quality manual may state: Your Air Company, Inc’s Management Team ensures that customer requirements are determined and met with the objective of enhancing customer satisfaction per the Design Management Procedure, Contract Review Procedure HO and the Contract Review Procedure SP. This example references to the common Design Management Procedure and facility-specific Contract Review Procedure HO (Home Office) and Contract Review Procedures SP (St. Petersburg). This approach works well for a company with limited number of locations, but it becomes unworkable when the number of facilities grows.

For organizations with a large number of sites, where we need to reference numerous documents in the manual, including those controlled by satellite locations, we have another option. We can establish a document to connect corporate quality manual clauses with the site-specific supporting documents. Let’s name this document a Manual Reference Matrix and consider the following document reference structure.

Corporate AS9100 Quality Manual section

Manual Reference Matrix Table of Contents (ToC)

Facility Manual Reference Matrix

Location-specific procedure

The Manual Reference Matrix is simply a list of all facilities and their Manual Reference Matrixes, as shown below:

Manual Reference Matrix Table of Contents

Home Office (Orlando, FL, USA)

Vancouver (Canada)

Berlin (Germany)

Sacramento, (CA, USA)

… etc,

To illustrate this model, let’s document element 5.5.1 of our corporate AS9100 quality manual with references to site-specific organizational charts: QW Air Enterprises, LLP’s Management Team ensures that the responsibilities and authorities are defined and communicated within the organization per the Resource Management Procedure and site-specific Organizational Charts per the Manual Reference Matrix ToC. This statement tells us that the company uses common Resources Management Procedure and site-specific organizational charts. To locate a site-specific organizational chart, we need to refer to the Manual Reference Matrix Table of Contents (ToC).

Finding the location in the Matrix ToC and locating, let’s say, St. Petersburg’s Matrix, we will identify a site-specific Manual Reference Matrix. Locating a specific element in the location’s Manual Reference Matrix, we will find a particular, location-specific procedure title that addresses our clause.

A Manual Reference Matrix may be formatted as a three-column form. The first two columns are titled Corporate Manual Section No. and Corporate References; the third column is called Location references. For the element 5.5.1, for example, the Matrix indicates that our manual references Organizational Chart HO for the corporate office and the Organizational Chart Site Name for the Site’s facility.

Looking for samples of a quality Manual Reference Matrix for AS9100 QMS? Check links below.

If you are working on an AS9100 Quality Manual for a large corporation and wish to keep your documentation simple, check our AS 9100 Manual Reference Matrix. If you need help with implementation of your Corporate Manual, check our AS9100 Quality Quality Management consulting services

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