ABSTRACT
OVERVIEW TO THE QUALITY SYSTEM MANUAL Seven years ago as I was writing the first edition of this Process-Approach Quality System Manual for manufacturing shops, I was searching for a “conveyor” (the flow process mechanism) which would identify the quality requirements suitable for shop operations. I wanted the quality requirements to represent the true nature of how a manufactured product was put through the various stages from planning through product completion and delivery to the customer. What I was looking for was a process approach that would tie the various departmental activities into a structured dependency so that everybody would be focused in one direction to bring about managing their work processes in line with commitments to product quality in a product’s flow cycle. I was looking for something that did not exist. I gave up the search and settled down instead to find only the quality requirements. As I was mulling over the 1987 edition of ISO 9000, I recognized that it had already identified for me the core departmental requirements that I needed, less the linkage to a process-approach system. I decided that I would follow the layout mechanism of the Standard and develop to it, separately, the process-approach procedures. In this second edition, I have retained the quality requirements of the same Standard (ISO 9001/1994) for controlling product quality in shop operations because the need exists for them, and because they represent reality.
