Communication

In plain words

This clause demands a conscious answer to five plain questions: about what must there be communication around the QMS, when, with whom, how — and who does it? Internally and externally.

No communication concept is demanded, no plan document. What is demanded is that the recurring quality-relevant communication cases are settled rather than accidental: How does the customer learn of a delivery delay? Who takes a complaint, and who acknowledges it? How does a process change reach everyone affected? Who talks to the authority when something must be reported?

In small companies almost all the answers exist already — oral, well-practised, tied to persons. The clause’s exercise is to make them conscious once: doing so reliably surfaces the one gap that would get expensive in an emergency.

Why this requirement exists

A surprising share of quality damage arises not from the product but from the communication about it. The customer forgives the delay — but not learning of it only upon asking. The complaint escalates not because of the defect, but because of three days of silence. The clause forces these paths to be settled before the emergency, when it costs nothing.

Internally it is the sister of 6.3 and 7.3: the best change planning fizzles if the change does not reach the affected — and awareness only grows where information flows. Where 7.3 asks whether the message arrived, 7.4 asks whether it gets sent — reliably, not only when someone happens to think of it.

What good looks like

In a company of 12 people: a table with half a dozen rows — the recurring cases, each with trigger, who, when, how. Inside: the Monday huddle, the passing-on of document and process changes, the objective status. Outside: the delay notification (with the policy’s rule: before the customer has to ask), complaint intake with an acknowledgement window, supplier talks, the authority paths.

The table is good when the emergency confirms it: at the last delay, order handling knew to call immediately — not because someone thought of it, but because it is their row. And when every row has a deputy: communication that hangs on one person goes silent in their holidays (the 7.1.6 pattern in channel form).

What changes as you grow: From around 50 people the paths need defined escalation stages (when does a topic go from clerk to management?) and the channels deputies. From 100–250 people a communication matrix per process and crisis communication (who speaks in a recall?) join. The core remains: for every quality-relevant case it is clear who informs whom, when and how.

The minimum to pass

• For the recurring quality-relevant cases it is recognisably settled who communicates how — inside and outside.
• The customer case demonstrably works: delay and complaint have a clear, lived path.
• Changes reach the affected — internal passing-on is not chance.
• Where reporting duties exist (authorities, customer agreements), the paths are known.

What an auditor asks for

• The spot check on the last real case: “Your last delivery delay — how and when did the customer learn of it?” The answer shows in one sentence whether 7.4 is lived.
• The path of the last complaint: taken by whom, acknowledged when, communicated how?
• The last process change: how did the affected learn of it — and did all of them?
• Whether the arrangement is conscious (nameable, with deputies) or merely well-practised chance.
• Where reporting duties exist: who reports what to whom — and does the person who would have to do it know?

Common traps

• The concept paper. Ten pages of communication concept nobody knows, instead of ten lines that are true. The clause wants working paths, not prose.
• The unsettled emergency. Daily business runs — at the first big delay nobody knows who calls the customer, and everyone thinks the other one did. Exactly this gap is what the table exercise finds beforehand.
• Inside forgotten over outside — or the reverse. Whoever settles only customer communication loses the change paths in the house; whoever thinks only internally loses the customer.
• The fizzled change. The 6.3 trap in communication form: planned, implemented — and half the affected learn it from the grapevine.
• The bottleneck. Everything runs through the managing director — solid, until they are away for two weeks. Channels need deputies like roles do (5.3).
• Reporting duties in the fog. Where industry or customer agreements demand reports, “the MD would probably handle that” is not an arrangement.

Worked example

The communication table of Berger Präzisionsteile GmbH has six rows: the Monday huddle (internal, weekly, Frau Berger); the delay notification (order handling, immediately upon recognition, by phone — the policy rule “before the customer has to ask” as the trigger); complaint intake (Lea, acknowledgement within 24 hours); changes to setup and inspection documents (Marco informs the affected directly, new version in the handbook); the annual supplier talk (purchasing); the reporting paths to the safety authority (production management, from the 4.2 table).

The emergency came with the hardening-shop bottleneck — the risk from 6.1 materialised, two orders were about to tip. Order handling called both customers the same day, with the honest picture and an alternative date. One customer rescheduled internally, the other took a partial delivery. Lost: nothing. In the annual talk, the bigger of the two said that exactly this call was why Berger remains a preferred supplier. A table row that paid for itself — and, in passing, living proof of the quality policy’s second sentence.

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