Management Review

The management review is the periodic assessment the top management of the organisation runs on the management system, required by ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, and ISO 50001 — the four standards that share the Annex SL structure and the clause 9.3 review requirement. The inputs are the evidence the system is working or not: the audit results, the nonconformities and the CAPAs, the performance metrics and the EnPIs and the TRIR, the customer and stakeholder feedback, the status of the corrective actions, and the progress on the objectives and targets. The review is the one place the system is judged against the outcomes it was built to produce, and the inputs are the data that lets the judgement be evidence and not opinion.

The outputs are the decisions — the resource needs, the improvement opportunities, and the changes to the system, the policy, and the objectives — and the records are the documented information the standard mandates, because the review that is not recorded is the review that did not happen, from the perspective of the auditor. The failure mode of the management review is the meeting that reviews the inputs and records the minutes and changes nothing, the box-tick that satisfies the clause but not the intent, and the review that does not change the system is the one that leaves the system stuck. The honest management review is the one where the inputs drive the outputs, the outputs drive the resources and the changes, and the next review measures whether the changes moved the metrics. See ISO 9001, ISO 45001, ISO 14001, and CAPA.