Operational policies

Management Operating policies and procedures Training for vapor release prevention and control Audits and inspections Equipment testing Maintenance program Management of modifications and changes to prevent new hazards Security... 

Operational policy, which applies to the operations of the business, such as design,... 

Does ISO 9001 require the other types of policies to be defined and documented There is no requirement in clause 4.1.1 but in clause 4.2.2 there is a requirement to prepare a quality manual covering the requirements of the standard and this is where you should document your operational policies. While the quality manual could simply contain the quality system procedures, the guidelines given in ISO 10013 clearly indicate that whether or not this is the case, the manual should describe the organization s policies for meeting the requirements of the standard. These aspects are addressed in Part 2 Chapter 2. 

The quality system should be designed to implement the corporate quality policy and hence the operational policies need to be consistent with the corporate policy. Often the... 

Define, agree, and publish operational policies for meeting each of the requirements of the standard and publish them in a policy manual. 

The 1987 version of ISO 9001 required the quality policy and the quality system procedures and instructions to be documented, clearly identifying three levels of documents in practice, organizations produced an intermediate level between the quality policy statement and the procedures which addressed the requirements of the standard and cross-referenced the associated procedures. This intermediate level together with the quality policy statement was often referred to as the quality manual. However, some manuals merely paraphrased the requirements of the standard, some described the quality system, and others confined the manual to the organization s operational policies. The guidance given in clause 5.3.1 of ISO 9004-1 suggests that the quality system documentation consists of policies and procedures. Clearly these policies are of a somewhat lower level than the corporate quality policy addressed in Part 2 Chapter 1. 

Operational policies, structured to align with the sequence of key processes from receipt of customer inquiry through to delivery and after-sales support, referencing the implementing control procedures... 

There are many sound reasons for documenting your operational policies ... 

In documenting your operational policies to meet ISO/TS 16949 you need to address each requirement in the standard where it is relevant to your business in terms that enshrine the above principles. Procedures implement policies - therefore the policies do not need to stipulate how things are carried out. In order to be effective, the policies should state what is to be done and the rules that constrain the actions and decisions connected with it. 

A common practice is to paraphrase the requirements of ISO/TS 16949 as operational policy statements. Whilst this approach does provide direct correlation with ISO/TS 16949 it does not by itself add any value since users can read the same things by referring to ISO/TS 16949. Operational policies should respond to the requirements, not paraphrase them, and they should provide solutions appropriate to the organization, as given in the following examples ... 

Further operational policies are provided in the ISO 9000 Quality System Development Handbook by David Hoyle (Butterworth-Heinemann, 1998). 

Quality system procedures are a certain type of procedure. They implement the operational policies and regulate processes that produce an output, the quality of which is essential to the business. Procedures do not in fact achieve quality - it is people who do that. Procedures do not take decisions, it is people who do that. So you could have the best procedures in the world and still not achieve quality. It has to be a combination of both for you to achieve the desired quality. 

Determine the operational policies needed to implement the corporate quality policy and place these in a policy manual with the corporate quality policy. 

Appropriate documents are those which are needed to carry out work and a list of 11 such documents is provided in the standard as examples. However, it may not be appropriate to place the quality manual at all locations if it does not contain any operational policies or procedures. The work instructions should specify the documents that are required for the task so that it is then clear that any not specified are not essential. It should not be left to the individual to determine which documents are essential and which are not. 

Although a dynamic mathematical model of the polymerization system has been developed (17) it is not capable of providing the necessary operating policies for the reactor in order to preselect the time-averaged MWD in the product. Hence the flow policies for the reagents were selected empirically and for experimental convenience. 

Aim of this work was to optimise enzymatic depolymerization of pectins to valuable oligomers using commercial mixtures of pectolytic enzymes. Results of experiments in continuous and batch reactor configurations are presented which give some preliminary indications helpful to process optimisation. The use of continuous reactors equipped with ultrafiltration membranes, which assure removal of the reaction products, allows to identify possible operation policy for the improvement of the reaction yield. 

Sorensen (1999) has suggested a cyclic operation policy for batch distillation with repeated filling and dumping of the reflux drum. This configuration achieves the maximum attainable separation and requires minimal control. Furthermore, such a column can be operated very safely. 

Industrial scientists, therefore, hold a very high public trust. There is a need to go beyond the requirements of scientific canons and demonstrate to the lay public that its trust has been upheld. A number of industrial firms have recognized and responded to this need. Wilder, of Eastman Chemical, for example, describes a proactive pollution prevention policy developed in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency.112 This work describes the key role of analytics in helping chemical manufacturers take leadership roles in redesigning processes for waste prevention. Since the analytical laboratory is a principal referee in the production process, there is always a risk that time pressures will tempt some members of the production team to "work the referee". An important function of the chain of command of the analytical laboratory, therefore, is establishing a clear operational policy to ensure that any such pressure does not reach the bench level ... 

Cleaning is an essential part of the operational policy for food safety and product quality reasons. 

Recommended actions should measurably reduce risks by reducing vulnerabilities and/or consequences through improved deterrence, delay, detection, and/or response capabilities or by improving operational policies or procedures. Selection of specific risk reduction actions should be completed prior to considering the cost of the recommended action(s). Facilities should carefully consider both short- and long-term solutions. An analysis of the cost of short- and long-term risk reduction actions may impact which actions the utility chooses to achieve its security goals. 

What are the company operational policies and procedures with respect to health in the workplace ... 

S. Garcia-Munoz, J.F. MacGregor, D. Neogi, B.F. Latshaw and S. Mehta, Optimization of batch operating policies. Part n. Incorporating process constraints and industrial applications, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 47(12), 4202-4208... 

Ryu, J. and Pistikopoulos, E.N. (2005) Design and operation of an enterprise-wide process network using operation policies. 1. Design. Industrial el Engineering Chemistry Research, 44, 2174. 

From the refinery side, the proposed model will provide the optimal network integration between the refineries, process expansion requirements, operating policy based on different feedstock combination alternatives, process levels and operating modes. On the petrochemical side, the model will establish the design of an optimal petrochemical process network for the production of PVC from the range of process technologies and feedstocks available to satisfy a given demand. 

The model was then solved for the total refinery network and the PVC petrochemical complex. As shown in Table 5.4, the proposed model redesigned the refinery network and operating policies and also devised the optimal production plan for the PVC complex from all available process technologies. The model selected gas oil, an intermediate refinery stream, as the refinery feedstock to the petrochemical complex as opposed to the normally used light naphtha feedstock in industrial practice. In fact, this selection provided the optimal strategy as the light naphtha stream was used instead in the gasoline... 

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