Clause 4.4 · Process approach

How many processes should a quality management system have?

Fewer than you have. Most quality systems are drawn with too many processes, and the reason is almost always the same: somebody started from a template instead of from the organization, and every heading in the standard became a box on the diagram.

There is no required number, and anyone who gives you one is selling something. But there is a test that settles most arguments in about a minute.

Written by a practicing aerospace QMS auditor, for Quality Management Veteran’s, Inc. · Published 5 September 2026 · Updated 31 October 2026 · About us

The rule of thumb

If nobody is primarily employed to execute an activity, it probably isn't a separate process — it's an activity inside a broader one.

It is not in any standard. It is a working heuristic from auditing quality systems for a living, and it is the same advice given to an auditee standing in front of a diagram they cannot explain.

Apply it and most bloated maps collapse quickly. Is there a Management Review Manager? No — the president runs the review, sets the objectives, owns the policy and chairs the risk discussion. That is one process with several activities inside it, not five processes. Is there a Document Control Officer, a Training Coordinator, a Calibration Technician and an Internal Audit Manager? In a shop of thirty people they are usually one quality manager wearing four hats, and that is one Support process.

The test cuts the other way just as often, which is what makes it a test rather than a preference. If you do employ a purchasing manager, purchasing is a process. If you employ engineers who design product, design is a process. The rule does not push you toward small maps; it pushes you toward honest ones.

The same rule, four answers

Four organizations, four different maps.

The clearest way to show a rule of thumb is working is to watch it land differently on the same question in four companies of a similar size — including two that do the same work and still get different answers.

AS9100D · machine shop

Purchasing is not a process

Machines parts to the customer's drawing. Nobody is employed to buy — the people planning the work order the material as part of planning it. Purchasing is an activity inside Operations. Six processes total, and clause 8.3 is excluded from scope entirely because the shop takes no design responsibility.

AS9120B · distributor

Purchasing is the business

Buys, stores and resells without altering the product. There is a purchasing manager, because buying well is the company. Purchasing & Supplier Control gets its own box, its own owner and its own metrics — and the map has a receiving and traceability process a machine shop does not need.

AS9100D · design & build

Design is a process

Designs and manufactures. It employs an engineering manager and design engineers, so Design & Development is a process of its own with its own KPIs and its own audit interval — and clause 8.3, which the other two legitimately scope out or exclude, is fully in play.

ISO 9001:2015 · contract manufacturer

Same work as the machine shop, opposite answer

This is the one that tests the rule rather than illustrating it. Redbank machines and fabricates to the customer's drawing, exactly like the first shop — but at around forty people it employs a supply chain coordinator, so somebody's job is buying. Purchasing gets its own box. Same activity, same size bracket, different answer, and the thing that decided it was who does the work rather than what the company sells.

All four are fictional organizations you can open and click through in the live demo.

What usually goes wrong

Four ways a process map gets to twelve boxes.

1. Counting procedures instead of processes

A process turns inputs into outputs and somebody owns it. A procedure is a document describing how part of it is done. One process is often served by several procedures. Draw a box per procedure and the map becomes a table of contents.

2. Turning clause headings into boxes

The standard is organised for reading, not for running a company. Its clause structure is a useful checklist for coverage and a poor blueprint for a process map. No shop is organised around clause 7.1.5.

3. Splitting to look thorough

A twelve-box diagram looks more rigorous than a six-box one right up until an auditor asks the owner of box nine how their process is performing, and the quality manager answers — because they own boxes seven, nine and eleven and cannot possibly speak to all of them in detail.

4. Never merging anything back

Maps grow. A process added for a customer that left, a box for a machine no longer owned. Clause 4.4.1 of ISO 9001:2015 asks you to determine the processes the quality system needs and their sequence and interaction, which is a live obligation, not a founding document.

The cost of getting it wrong

Every extra process is not just a box. It is a set of inputs and outputs to maintain, an owner to name, KPIs to measure and analyse, an audit interval to meet, and a PEAR to complete at every certification audit that samples it. Twelve processes means twelve of each. That is why over-splitting does not merely look untidy — it quietly multiplies the ongoing work of running the system, usually for an organization that did not have spare capacity in the first place.

Try it on your own map

Five questions to put to every box.

  1. Whose job is it? Name the person. If the honest answer is a role that has never existed, or somebody who already owns three other boxes, the box is a candidate to merge.
  2. Could that person answer for it? Ask them how the process is performing. If they would have to open someone else’s records to reply, the box is probably part of that other process.
  3. Does it have inputs and outputs of its own? If they are the same as the box next to it, they are one process drawn twice.
  4. Does anyone look at a measure for it? A process with no measure nobody reviews is an activity with a label.
  5. If you deleted the box, would the work still happen? If yes, and it would happen inside a neighbouring process, merge it into that one.

Two or more “no” answers on a box usually mean it is an activity inside a neighbouring process. This is a working heuristic, not a requirement of ISO 9001 or of the 9100 series, and a box that fails it can still be worth keeping when a customer or your certification body asks for it by name.

Where the detail should live

The map answers one question. The turtle answers the rest.

A lot of over-splitting comes from trying to make the interaction diagram carry information it was never meant to carry.

The interaction map has one job: show which process feeds which. The moment you start hanging equipment, competence, documents and metrics off the arrows, it stops being readable — and none of that belongs there anyway. It belongs in a turtle diagram or a SIPOC, one process at a time, where there is room for it. Keep the map coarse and the detail one level down, and the pressure to split disappears.

An interaction-of-processes diagram for a machine shop: one Management process above four core processes in a single left-to-right flow — contract and order review, operations, inspection and test, packaging and shipping — with one Support process below and customer requirements and satisfaction bookending the diagram.An interaction-of-processes diagram for a machine shop: one Management process above four core processes in a single left-to-right flow — contract and order review, operations, inspection and test, packaging and shipping — with one Support process below and customer requirements and satisfaction bookending the diagram.

Six processes, one linear core flow, support drawn as a real process but deliberately not wired to each core box. Click to enlarge.

Video · 0:46A narrated walkthrough of this screen: The interaction of processes.
Read the narration

This is the interaction of processes in JBird. It is drawn from your own data, not copied from a stock diagram. Management sits above the core, with the activities it owns: the quality policy, quality objectives, risks and opportunities, and management review. Four core processes run left to right: contract and order review, operations, inspection and test, and packaging and shipping. Each box lists its own activities. Support is drawn as a real process below the core. Customer requirements come in on the left. Customer satisfaction goes out on the right. Drawn from your own data. JBird QMS.

Common questions

What people ask about process counts.

How many processes should a quality management system have?

There is no required number, and any consultant who gives you one is selling a template. A small manufacturer usually lands somewhere between five and eight: one management process, three to five core processes following the flow of the work, and one support process. What matters is not the count but whether each box corresponds to something a real person is primarily employed to run.

Is management review a separate process?

Usually not. Management review, context of the organization, risk and opportunity management, quality objectives and the quality policy are normally activities inside a single Management process. Splitting them into five boxes produces a diagram nobody reads and five sets of inputs, outputs, owners and KPIs to maintain, all owned by the same person.

Does every company need a purchasing process?

No. A small machine shop with no purchasing manager usually folds purchasing into Operations, because the people planning the work are the people buying the material. A stockist distributor whose entire business is buying and reselling gives Purchasing its own process, its own owner and its own metrics. Same rule, opposite answers, both correct for the organization in question.

What is the difference between a process and a procedure?

A process is a set of activities that turns inputs into outputs and that somebody owns. A procedure is a document describing how part of it is done. One process can be served by several procedures. Counting procedures and drawing a box for each is one of the commonest ways a process map ends up with twelve boxes.

Will an auditor object if we have too few processes?

Not on the count itself. What an auditor tests is whether the processes you have identified cover the whole quality system, whether their sequence and interaction are determined, and whether each one has an owner who can speak to how it performs. A smaller map where every owner can answer for their process is stronger than a larger one where three boxes trace back to the same overloaded quality manager.

See all four maps in the demo → How the AS9101 PEAR works

Sources and further reading

What is from the standards, and what is from experience.

The rule of thumb, and the four example organizations, are the author’s own, from auditing experience. They are not taken from a published source, and the four organizations are fictional. Related guides: how the AS9101 PEAR works and Form 2 conformity marks.

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