ISO 9001 - Clause 5: Leadership

Clause 5 has three sub clause 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3. which specifies required related to leadership role and responsibilities, requirement of Quality Policy and roles and responsibilities for implementation of QMS.

Clause 5.1 - Leadership 

This clause is mainly for top management of organisation. It includes role/ function of top management which includes as below,

  • Integrating QMS with business requirements
  • Promoting risk based approach
  • Accountable for effectiveness of QMS
  • Establishing Quality Policy and Quality objectives
  • Providing resource needed (e.g. Human resource, Infrastructure, Equipment's, etc.)
  • Promoting improvements
  • Engaging, directing and supporting team for effective implementation
  • Communicating importance of QMS

Clause 5.2 - Quality Policy

A policy is a top-level document that provides a broader framework for organizations. It's a commitment of the organization.

Key requirements for a quality policy include:

  1. Alignment with the organization's context (for example, an IT service industry policy will differ from an engineering manufacturing industry policy)
  2. Provision of a framework for organizational quality objectives
  3. Commitment to satisfying applicable requirements
  4. Commitment to continual improvement

How can the policy be communicated?

There are multiple ways to communicate the quality policy, such as:

  1. Displaying it in prominent places
  2. Discussing it during meetings, particularly during the initial implementation of the quality management system
  3. Posting it on the organization's website, intranet, or shared folder, where people can easily access the quality policy

Organizations may choose one or multiple methods, or any other way to communicate the quality policy.

According to ISO 9001 standards, an organization's quality policy should be documented.

Template - Quality Policy

Clause 5.3 - Organisation roles and responsibilities 

Roles and responsibilities for implementation should be assigned to the respective persons/designations who are working on organizing, which impacts the implementation of the Quality Management System.

It is not mandatory to retain documented information for roles and responsibilities.

Examples of where roles and responsibilities are assigned are through:

  • Job description
  • Procedures
  • Work instructions
  • Organization chart
  • ERP system
  • Verbally assigned (least preferred, unless it's a one-off).