A quality manual that matches the work

The situation

A calibration laboratory working to UKAS accreditation under ISO/IEC 17025:2017, with work both in the lab and on client sites.

What had to be shown

An assessor does not read a quality manual on its own. They watch a calibration and check it against the procedure, then check the certificate against both. A manual written once and filed drifts from practice within months, and every gap between the two is a finding.

How I did it

1. Mapped each clause of the standard, from impartiality and competence to method validation, uncertainty and reporting, to the procedure that meets it, so nothing was covered twice or not at all.
2. Walked each procedure against a real job and rewrote it to describe what the team actually does, then changed the practice where the standard asked for more.
3. Kept the uncertainty budget for each calibration method alongside the procedure it supports, so a change to one prompts a check of the other.
4. Kept the system live through document control, internal audit and management review rather than a rewrite before each assessment.

What the client got

A manual and procedure set the team works from rather than around, which is what an assessment tests. Because I also do the calibrations, a procedure that no longer fits the job shows up on the next job, not at the next assessment.

Written from the work, with no client named and no client figures quoted.