Management review is an activity that is required, among others, by ISO and the IATF standard. It usually consists of a few hours meeting organized by the QMS coordinator. Of course, the owners of business processes operating in the organization’s environment also take part in it.
In recent years, due to the pandemic accelerating digitization, the management review has also found a space to be carried out 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 in a remote form, we must plan it in advance with other participants. They can be divided into individual stages:
- Risk and opportunity analysis performing. 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. TISAX, on the other hand, requires the involvement of other resources that also include central functions, therefore this risk analysis is carried out separately by me
- Preparation of a presentation structure for business process owners
- Planning the appropriate number of meeting sessions and documenting it. 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). Taking into account the typical business processes used in the automotive industry (Business Management, Quality, OHS/ECO, IT, HR, Maintenance, Logistics, Supply Quality, Production, Laboratory, Continuous Improvement, Finance, New Launches and Change Management, Integrated Management System ect.), two to four hours should be allocated to each of these sessions.
This maximum time may relate to complex processes (New Launches) or a scenario when we have to take into account new requirements relating to certification, corporate requirements, GDPR or information security system implementation.
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 the same management review is performed for more than one site. Such situations also occur.
When? Most often, as part of the company’s development, a new production plant was built 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. Risk and Opportunity Analysis can also be used to discuss with process owners the implementation of activities that were included in an earlier management review.
Presentation structure
In order 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 the best is to discuss the strategy for the time period with the management
- Action plan in case when assigned indicators are not met
- 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 point 9.3.3 point a – opportunities for improvement.
You can also expand the structure of the presentation with the changes that have occurred in:
- company procedures
- corporate procedures
- Customer Specific Requirements (CSR’s) assigned to our business process
Online meetings planning with attendees
Unlike face-2-face meetings, those carried out remotely must take into account the important factor, which is the time duration. During online meetings, we must take into account how long we can focus on the other participants presentations. For this reason, one session should take a maximum of 2-2,5 hours. In this case, I did not consider the break.
Each of the process owners must also remember that their time is 20-30 minutes to present all the information covering the points listed in the structure of the presentation.
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 others meeting immediately after our.
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, the screenshot of the participants present during the meeting, dissolves all doubts.
Management review – report preparation
A standard approach can be used as a report, i.e. we list all requirements and fill them in the appropriate form. However, I recommend that the review report be created from the presentations provided by the process owners. With this, 95% of the work is already done.
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
