Establishing a quality procedure is a comprehensive business project that requires the participation of all employees. Therefore, it is necessary to define a "quality organisation" that fits into and hinges on the exisiting organisation.

A quality manager (sometimes called a quality adviser or a quality director depending on the company's size) must be designated. He or she will manage the quality actions taken in the company. Depending on how big the organisation is, the quality manager may be assisted by a team called the quality unit (or thequality department). That said, the quality procedure must not be solely the responsibility of the quality manager and his or her unit but rather should be a team effort.

A quality committee that is headed by management and includes the quality manager as well as company managers must be created so that results in terms of quality can be made known and so that the entire company is involved in the improvement of these results. The quality committee must be cleverly structured along with the management committee to make sure that the important decisions are not only made in management committee meetings.

Each department or office is responsible for implementing the quality directives at their level. With the involvement of the quality manager, a quality correspondent will ideally be named at each one of these levels so as to show a strong commitment to the company's quality department.

Article written on 16 December 2004 by Jean-François Pillou