Norms such as ISO and IATF standard require management review as an activity. It usually consists of a few hours of meeting lead by the QMS coordinator. Of course, the owners of business processes operating within the organization’s environment also take part.
In recent years, due to the pandemic accelerating digitization, management review has also found space to be conducted remotely.
The most important thing is to have a plan – what to pay attention to before carrying out the review
When preparing to conduct a management review remotely, we must plan it in advance with other participants. We can divide the process into individual stages.
- Risk and opportunity analysis. In my case, this applies to the IATF standard, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, and TISAX – although it is not required as opposed to ISO 27001. I group the first three together in one meeting. On the other hand, TISAX requires the involvement of other resources, including central functions, so organizations carry out this risk analysis separately.
- Preparation of a presentation structure for business process owners.
- Planning the appropriate number of meeting sessions and documenting them. The best proof is a screenshot and the invitations issued in the MS Office calendar, for example.
Risk and opportunity analysis
The above analysis is one of several input data elements required by ISO 9001 in clause 9.3.2 e). Considering the typical business processes used in the automotive industry:
- Business Management
- Quality
- EHS/ECO
- IT
- HR
- Maintenance
- Logistics
- Supply Quality
- Production
- Laboratory
- Continuous Improvement
- Finance
- New Launches and Change Management
- Integrated Management System, etc
two to four hours should be allocated to each of these sessions.
This maximum time may relate to complex processes (New Launches) or scenarios where new requirements related to certification, corporate requirements, GDPR, or information security system implementation must be considered.
An additional factor that influenced the duration of the meetings in my case was the availability of participants from both production plants. Exactly, that’s right – two facilities.
This is a special scenario when you perform the same management review for more than one site. Such situations also occur.
When? Most often, as part of the company’s development, the organization built a new production plant next to the existing one.
The topic of risk analysis management is presented in a separate article. Additionally, you can download a sample analysis form and use it at work. In addition to discussing with process owners the implementation of activities included in an earlier management review, Risk and Opportunity Analysis can also be used.
Presentation structure
To better manage the meeting remotely, it’s best to prepare a presentation form for participants, which will contain the following information:
- Implementation of indicators (KPIs) assigned to a given business process
- Optional trend over the last 12 months or the entire previous calendar year. Here it is best to discuss the strategy for the time period with management
- Action plan in case you do not meet the assigned indicators
- The most important activities carried out in a given period
- Strategic actions planned for the future
The last point is important because, in the review report, we can include such planned activities in accordance with the requirement of ISO 9001, clause 9.3.3 a – opportunities for improvement.
You can also expand the presentation structure with the changes that have occurred in:
- Company procedures
- Corporate procedures
- Customer Specific Requirements (CSRs) assigned to our business process
Online meetings planning with attendees
Unlike face-to-face meetings, those carried out remotely must take into account an important factor: time duration. During online meetings, we must consider how long we can focus on the other participants’ presentations. For this reason, one session should take a maximum of 2-2.5 hours. This does not include breaks.
Each process owner must also remember that their time is 20-30 minutes to present all the information covering the points listed in the presentation structure.
If you are a coordinator, it’s important to keep an eye on this aspect. In the era of free “windows” in the calendar, we must remember that some people will “dial in” for another meeting immediately after ours.
You can always set up an additional session in such a situation. Of course, in the management review report, it is worth mentioning when a given online session took place. As proof, a screenshot of the participants present during the meeting resolves all doubts.
Management review – report preparation
We can use a standard approach for the report, which involves listing all requirements and filling them in the appropriate form. However, I recommend creating the review report from the presentations provided by the process owners. With this, we have already completed 95% of the work.
On the ‘Free Tools‘ page, you can download a free, editable Excel form for your own use.
Document name: Process Owner Template for Management Review – ppt form
Dariusz Kowalczyk
