The Quality Management Process in Unilever 1. Purpose This note proposes an approach to the quality management process in Unilever.

2 Definitions The quality management process is defined as the procedures used by a Business to ensure that the products and services it sells have a defined set of properties. The base of this process is a product specification. This sets out the properties that the product should have. These must be defined in physical terms they must be capable of measurement. Normally this measurement is a direct assessment of the property. Sometime the property can not be determined directly. In these cases reliance is placed on specifying a procedure that has been demonstrated to result in the desired property. For example sensory properties often need to be defined by comparison with standards by panels. Quality management is concerned with all the processes and procedures necessary to ensure final products meet specifications. These processes have been defined for HPC (Quality Road Map) and Foods (SHE 12.2). The specification also defines the interface between the brand development and supply chain processes. It is the responsibility of brand development to define the specifications of the products it has created. This must of course be done in full consultation with all relevant functions in the Business. Once agreed the supply chain is then responsible for delivering product that meets these requirements. 3 Quality and Safety Products must be safe during manufacture, transport and use. Product safety is assured by including appropriate properties in the product specification. These can be defined by direct measurement. Alternatively they are defined as a concomitant of adhering to specified procedures. For example food safety is often specified through adherence to good manufacturing practice rather than direct measurement of product properties In drawing up specifications there must be full input from the appropriate experts in product and process safety. The specification must comply with all SHEACO guidelines and other appropriate policies. Product safety is a vital part of the specification. But it should be stressed that it is only a part. The specification must embrace all the properties that define the quality of the product. 4 Responsibilities The quality management process is within the responsibilities of Business Groups. They may chose to delegate the operation of the process to Operating Units. But there are some Corporate inputs:

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*SHEACO sets corporate standards of product safety and the associated requirements for specifications and procedures. *Category teams have responsibilities for some defined brands. The International Category Boards and Brand Teams define key properties that product specifications must contain. *Category Groups have defined procedures encapsulating best practice. There is some lack of clarity in the status of these in the new organisation. This is being clarified with the Corporate secretaries office. It is the responsibility of Business Groups to incorporate these inputs into their specifications. One unresolved issue is whether there is a requirement for standards of quality management to be defined at the concern level; and who would take responsibility for maintaining these standards. 5 Unileverage There is a strong desire to share experience in the quality management process across Business Groups. To facilitate this a quality network has been formed under the leadership of Brigitte Tantawy. This consists of representatives of all Business Groups. They have concluded that: *There should be a formal Unilever policy on quality management. *A uniform process should be used in all Business groups. This will encompass the adherence to SHEACO policies and would apply to all categories. *The quality network should own the process and manage convergence. *Central resource is required to support the work of the network. Recommendations The following approach to the quality management process is recommended: *Responsibility for the process should lie with MAST. It is primarily concerned with producing product to meet agreed specifications. This fits the MAST role. *The MAST Council should draft and gain agreement to a Unilever policy on quality management *The quality network should be confirmed as the owners of the process. This will be a sub team of the MAST Council. *The quality network should define the Unilever Quality Management process. The source material from the HPC Quality road map and SHE 12.2 for Foods should be fused into a single approach. This will utilise the format of ISO 9001 to facilitate external accreditation. This is a significant task. The ongoing roles of the quality network will then be reviewed. *A clear definition of the role and requirements for central resource must be established. There are two issues. Firstly, whether it is necessary to
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have a full time support to the network. Secondly, there are resources in SEAC devoted to quality. These were derived from the original Foods Executive initiative in this area. A decision is required on whether these resources should be redeployed and how they should be managed. The MAST SVP Foods will be responsible for producing a resource proposal. The MAST Council will assess this as part of the CPG process. *A consistent approach to documenting best practice inputs to the quality management process from Category Groups will be developed. The MAST SVP HPC will take the lead. *Currently available resource in SEAC will be deployed to support the network in producing the Unilever Quality Management Process. Brigitte Tantawy will lead this process. *The requirement for standards of quality management to be set at Concern level will be discussed with the appropriate members of ExCo by MAST SVP Foods and Heads of SEAC.

16th February, 1999

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