A quality manual is a top-level document describing the scope of the quality management system, its processes and their interactions, and any exclusions.
It is not required
ISO 9001:2008 required one. ISO 9001:2015 removed the requirement, along with the six mandatory documented procedures. Many organisations never noticed, and a large number still maintain manuals because a template told them to.
The revision made this change deliberately, to stop organisations producing documents for auditors rather than for the business.
When to keep one
- Customers or sector schemes ask for it — some supplier programmes still do
- It genuinely helps new staff understand how the system fits together
- It is a useful front door to a system spread across several platforms
When to drop it
If it duplicates content held elsewhere, it is now two things to keep current instead of one — and a manual that contradicts the procedure it summarises is a finding waiting to be raised.
If you keep one, keep it short
A useful manual is a map, not a territory: scope, exclusions with justification, a process map, and links to where the real detail lives. Twenty pages is generous. Manuals that restate the standard clause by clause help nobody and age badly — as anyone who kept one through the 2015 revision discovered.