Dear aps,
I’m rather unclear how you are defining “policies” with respect to the BRC Standard’s content. Not necessarily criticising since the chosen method is optional as long as it fulfills the overall requirement, eg
The purpose of a Quality Policy Manual is to show the commitment of upper management to follow the ISO 9000 standards and to state the company philosophy and policies toward satisfying each of the standard's requirements.
(my underline)
For example, I see no reference in yr document relatable to purchasing policy, etc??
I can illustrate one typical approach (there are no doubt many) via a few definitions from ISO 9000 –
3.4.5 Procedure: specified way to carry out an activity or a process. Note 1: Procedures can be documented or not. Note 2: When a procedure is documented, the term "written procedure" or "documented procedure" is frequently used. The document that contains a procedure can be called a "procedure document".
For Quality Policy:
3.2.4 Quality Policy - overall intentions and direction of an organization related to quality as formally expressed by top management. Note 1: Generally the quality policy is consistent with the overall policy of the organization and provides a framework for the setting of quality objectives. Note 2: Quality management priciples presented in this International Standard can form a basis for the establishment of a quality policy.
Strangely, as I understand it, “policy” itself is not defined in 9000 standard. A range of shades of interpretation seems to exist -
1. (
http://www.wordsmyth.net/ ) –
Policy: a set of principles that is used as a guide for action, esp. in a government or business.
Procedures: a series of actions necessary for accomplishing a particular goal; course of action.
2.
In the simplest terms, a policy defines an outcome, while a procedure defines the means to the end. For example, it might be company policy that all employee purchases be rung up by another employee, while the procedure to achieve that might be that receipts must include both the name of the employee who made the purchase and the name of the employee who rang it up.
(
http://www.ehow.com/...procedures.html )
3. The one below from a multi-topic website, (
http://www.school-fo...0/rationale.htm ) which I personally found the most readable, although there is obviously a potential crossover into the previous definition of “procedure”.–
Most documents stating a company's policies simply tell what course of action the company takes
.
(I suppose using previous def. 3.4.5 of “procedure” maintains a separation in meaning)
Same (last-named) reference then goes on to state –
“Since most Quality Policy Manuals follow the numbering format from the ISO 9000 standard they are using, the meat of the policies consist of the 20 subsections of section 4.0. Each of those subsections includes one or more policy statements.”
It seems to me that this approach offers a simple basis for constructing a Policy Manual although, as you know, the choice is totally optional.
Rgds / Charles.C
