How to conduct management reviews? A comprehensive introduction to the review process and key points from 8 aspects

Many companies encounter various problems when doing their first quality management system certification. Today, we will specifically share the entire process and key points of management review.

1. Overview

First, let's introduce the standard's requirements for quality management system management review. Clause 9.3.1 of the standard states: "Top management shall review the organization's quality management system at planned intervals to ensure its continuing suitability, adequacy, and effectiveness, and alignment with the organization's strategic direction."
Let's interpret the standard. Due to time constraints, we will not explain each clause one by one, but directly introduce the standard requirements.
First, the management review should be chaired by top management (i.e., the legal representative, the big boss). Management reviews are generally conducted in the form of meetings. So, the company owner organizes and convenes the management review meeting.
Second, the main task of the management review is to evaluate the quality management system to ensure the system's suitability, adequacy, and effectiveness. Many people do not clearly understand the difference between management review and internal audit.
Internal audit focuses on effectiveness, evaluating whether the system operates effectively. Internal audits address conformity and effectiveness issues.
Management review treats the system as the subject of discussion and examination: whether the system's provisions fully meet regulatory standards, whether it is comprehensive, whether it promotes the company's expected goals, whether there are obstacles, and whether there are areas for continuous improvement and enhancement.
Management review is part of the PDCA cycle of the system, specifically the Act phase, representing the stage of continuous improvement. The focus of management review is on the future, determining whether the system is suitable for future development environments.
In general, management review is mainly the responsibility of the legal representative and department heads. It is equivalent to broadening communication channels, listening to suggestions, timely identifying and addressing problems, and adjusting direction.
Although it is not closely related to general quality management personnel, the department reports are not written by our subordinates. Moreover, one day you may become a department head or even the legal representative. Therefore, understanding the workflow and main content of management review is still very necessary.
Management review is a high-level quality meeting organized by the legal representative to evaluate suitability, effectiveness, and adequacy. It can be combined with administrative summaries. The review must have conclusions. Generally, the unit first confirms that the three aspects meet requirements but also identifies shortcomings and then proposes improvement requirements.

Next, let's focus on understanding the main workflow and key points of management review.

2. Planning

First, the quality management department generally formulates the management review plan (some companies use notification plans, etc.), clarifying the relevant arrangements for the management review work of the year, reviewed by the management representative, and approved by the legal representative's signature.

The main content of the management review (or plan) generally includes: review time, review purpose, review scope and focus, participating departments (and personnel), review basis, and review content.

3. Management Review Process

The main process for implementing management review:

Each department prepares input materials, then through the review meeting, evaluates the review inputs, proposes corrective and preventive measures for existing or potential nonconformities. After the review, a management review report should be prepared, and improvements should be made based on the review results.

Generally, companies should establish a management review control procedure specifying the responsibilities of departments implementing management review, workflow, and related records to be generated and retained.

4. Input Materials

The input materials for management review are summary and evaluation reports prepared by each department based on the company's quality management manual and related procedural documents, combined with the operation of quality management in their department.

Regarding templates for management review input materials, there are many templates available on platforms like Baidu Wenku for reference. The most important thing is that the report content is comprehensive and provides full and sufficient input materials for the management review meeting; the format is not very important.

Here we focus on the main content that should be included in the management review input materials:

Internal audit results related to the department;

Customer feedback (including customer satisfaction, customer complaints, etc.);

Process performance and product conformity (including results of process, product, and service measurement and monitoring);

Status of corrective and preventive actions;

Follow-up and effectiveness of previous management review measures;

Various changes that may affect the quality management system; operation status of the quality management system, including the suitability and effectiveness of quality policies and objectives;

Other improvement suggestions.

5. Management Review Meeting

The management review meeting is held at the planned or notified time and organized by the company's legal representative. Heads of various departments attend the management review meeting and submit input materials respectively.

Department heads summarize the implementation of the company's quality management work in their departments based on their responsibilities and evaluate whether the quality management system is suitable and effective for the current actual production, proposing improvement suggestions.

In the management review meeting, all departments must speak and evaluate the system. This is a good opportunity to improve the company's quality management system.

The company's legal representative is certainly the busiest and usually does not have much time to understand the operation of the quality management system, which is usually managed by the management representative. This time, taking special time to listen to department heads' summaries, evaluations, and suggestions on the company's quality management system is a very rare opportunity and also one of the manifestations of the company's top management's emphasis on quality management.

The legal representative should consider, based on each department's input materials combined with the company's quality policy, objectives, and current development strategy, whether to adjust the company's quality objectives, whether to adapt and improve the system, in which aspects improvements have been made, and which work needs to be improved and further strengthened.

Corrective measures should be proposed for existing or potential nonconformities, or preventive measures should be taken.

6. Management Review Report

The company should form management review outputs and reports based on the management review process and results.

The management review report should include measures in the following aspects:

Improvements related to the quality management system processes;

Improvements related to products concerning customer requirements;

Resource requirements.

The management review report is generally organized and compiled by the management representative, approved by the general manager, and distributed to various company departments. The quality management department or other designated departments or personnel are responsible for monitoring, executing, tracking, and verifying the management review improvement requirements.

The output of this management review can be used as one of the inputs for the next management review. If the management review results in document modifications, they must be carried out strictly in accordance with the relevant requirements of the company's document management control procedures.

For issues identified during the management review that are considered to have a certain impact on the company's quality management system and require corrective or preventive actions according to regulations, the relevant provisions of the company's corrective and preventive action control procedures shall be followed.

7. Improvement

For improvement requirements raised in the management review report, the responsible department shall develop an improvement action plan or scheme, which shall be implemented after approval by the management representative (or department head, depending on the authority defined in the company's management review control procedures).

Generally, the improvement requirements specified in the management review report are relatively broad. Therefore, the responsible department usually needs to formulate a more detailed improvement plan or implementation scheme, which is also one of the manifestations of implementing the quality management PDCA cycle concept.

If the responsible department directly makes improvements in work according to the improvement requirements but fails to provide relevant documented information (including documents and records), it will lack persuasiveness. This not only makes it difficult to convince during external audits but also makes it hard for the company's quality management department verifying the execution of improvement requirements to accept.

For corrective and preventive actions proposed during the management review, the quality management department should focus on monitoring and tracking their improvement status.

After the responsible department completes the related rectification requirements, the quality department should verify the execution and effectiveness of the corrective and preventive actions. The responsible department must provide relevant evidence and documentation before the issue can be closed.

8. Increasing Review Opportunities

The company generally conducts management reviews at intervals not exceeding 12 months.

The frequency and cycle of reviewing the company's quality management system are generally annual, but in some special cases, the frequency of management reviews should be increased to ensure the integrity of the company's quality management system, improve suitability, and ensure that the company’s production and services continuously achieve the expected results.

Generally, the following situations require increasing the frequency of management reviews of the company's quality management system:

When there are significant changes in the company's organizational structure, product range or type, or resource allocation;

When major quality incidents occur or when there are serious or continuous customer complaints about quality;

When there are significant changes in laws, regulations, and other related requirements related to products or services;

When there are significant changes in market demand;

When serious nonconformities in the quality management system are found during second-party, third-party audits, or other audits required by laws and regulations;

Other occasions when the company's legal representative deems it necessary to carry out management review work.