After substantial completion of your quality manual, the next step is to make sure you can show the auditor at least 3 months of operating documents. If your quality system is quite a departure form your past day-to-day processes, this may mean “operating your new quality system for a minimum of 3 months”. If your new quality system is largely documentation of what you have been doing, your minimum operational experience may be less than 3 months.
After sufficient documentation and operating experience (the minimum 3 month period) the NAHB Research Center should be contacted for an application for the qualification audit. Lynda Marchman or Bob Hill (800 638-8556) will provide the application and instructions for preparing for the auditor's visit. The audit process will decide if your quality system meets the NHQ program requirements and if you have sufficiently documented your initial NHQ system operation.
Some of the implementation steps include:
- Establish the quality committee or continue to have regular meetings of your quality committee to manage and track progress to full quality system implementation.
- Print and distribute, or otherwise make your completed quality manual available to all employees who need it. Conduct training of personnel to ensure that everyone understands not only the quality management system but also comprehends their individual part in the system.
- Confirm that all employees know the quality manual that describes your quality assurance system, exists, and that each employee knows his or her role in the company’s quality effort. Sometimes this is accomplished with an all-staff meeting convened by Senior Management and including a briefing by the company quality manager.
- About 6 weeks into this initial implementation period, contact Serge Ogranovitch of Potomack Group (serge@potomack.net or 703 980-6565) to schedule a date to train your initial group of internal auditors. These people should come from various areas of your company so “independent” audits can be done periodically of your various operational areas.
- Graph or chart your performance measures (from Section 1.11) on a monthly basis. After the first few months, quarterly results are sufficient.
- Make a list of the inspections on each new home that are required by your quality system, confirm that each of these is being done, and documented. (job ready, in-process, quality inspection #1, quality inspection #2, final inspection, etc.)
- After Serge’s visit, schedule an internal audit of each of your operational areas (production, purchasing, warranty, sales, etc.), and decide who is to do each audit. Do the scheduled audits, report results to the manager of the operational area being audited, and forward the audit report to the quality committee for needed review and follow-up. These internal audits are to be done at least every 6 months in every operational area.
- Start (or continue) your training programs. Document training sessions and attendees. Try out the process of identifying recurring problems and developing training activities that are designed to eliminate them. (This is the Pre-Emptive Actions mentioned in 3.3.1, 4.3.1, or 5.3.1.
Training and implementation support will continue to be available from your NHQ consultant. The goal is to make sure your company is ready to pass the initial NHQ qualification audit the first time with no problems.