OK I've started work on our Quality Manual this week which is where our Quality Policy and Objectives will be documented.

Upon reading our current ISO 9001:1994 based manual, most of the "documented" objective are very nice but they are really just concepts and not MEASURABLE quality goals or objectives.

I am looking for some inspiration and/or example of some "documented" objectives that are in use, are useful, (and passed certification).

We have slowly started to define SOME measurable goals for various departments which we are trying to adhere to and report on monthly (staff/managment review meetings). But I/we do not have a lot of time to get them documented for our pre-assessment.

Type of company:
SMALL metal stamping and sheet metal spot welding company.
Currently under 30 employees total.

Examples of things we are currently trying to measure/report on/act on:
Scrap dollars, Scrap quantities, and reasons for large quantities or dollars. (Production)
Overtime and miscellaneous production time tracking.
On-Time Delievery
General / Specific Customer Satisfaction / Complaints
Sales and Accounting info and goals
Purchasing info and ratios
Vendor performance / problems
Typical Management Review Stuff: Internal Audits, NC's, Rejects, etc.

Unfortunately, I/we currently don't know what/how to "document" our official quality objectives.

Any tips or samples are appreciated.

Hi Bob,

Don't try to tackle them all at once.

Why not narrow your list down to what you will need to do to satisfy the other requirements. Then set-up your measurments and set some goals. In the future, you can other issues you want to track.

What I am setting up for starters here is....

On-time Delivery - tied into customer satisfaction
Vendor Performance - tied into my vendor controls
Inspectioin yields - I have already been doing this for 5 years.

KISS to start....when you get the hang of it, expand.

Hope this helps a bit.

CarolX

CarolX
I will try to keep it simple if I can.
BUT...
I need to get our manual done ASAP (technically was due 7/16 but pre-assessment may be on 8/11 now...)
AND
We have never had "documented" objectives, metrics, goals, etc. that could actually be measured.
So...
Even though we may be measuring things (currently and in the past), they were never a "documented" requirement, just informal requirement per the Boss's decree for monthly meetings.

We probably have a good starting list, but I will really need to discuss with boss and other manager to determine what actually will be put on "paper".

I'm still looking inspirations/examples even though we really need to develop them based on our own need/desires.

Bob,

Not exactly sure what you mean by documented, but see if this helps



Sue:)

P.S. Haven't attempted to use the attachment feature in some time, so if doesn't appear, I will be glad to email it to you.

Here's a rough example of an approach that I've used with several clients of mine. The objectives are developed along with the quality policy (attached is an early draft of their objectives).

They then collected baseline measurements for each of the objectives on the list (some they already had historical data for). Some of objectives were unmeasurable or they didn't know how to measure them, so they tweaked them into something that they could. They reviewed the results to see if they were meaningful measures of success. In the end, they wound up with a good list of key indicators that are measurable and correspond with the quality policy.

Hopefully this will help a bit...

BTW, sometimes the quality policy changes as a result of looking at the objectives.

Raffy - It looks like your post got lost in the database error last night. Since the content was in the email notification I got, I'll repost it, then comment:

Originally posted by Raffy
I already download the Quality Objectives. I just want to clarify things with regard to the document. how do you come up with the Quality Objectives? Does every department of the organization must contribute for the generation of a Quality Objective? I notice that the Quality Polciy on the sample Quality Objective has the equal row on the Quality Objective, does it mean that the Quality Policy should be measurable? I'm quite confused.

Any feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

Best regards,
Raffy
The quality objectives are determined by top management. Since these objectives are for the entire company, individual departments may or may not contribute to them. There may be other department-level objectives that the company uses to support these objectives.

IMO there should not be anything in the policy that you aren't able to measure in some way. That's why there is a line-by-line correlation in the example document. If the objectives truly support the policy, they should be indicators of how successful we are at doing the things contained in the policy. This is how I interpret 5.3c that says the quality policy "provides a framework for establishing and reviewing quality objectives"

Some of the objectives on their list aren't what many people would consider to be "quality" related - although I would argue that they are all at least indirectly related. This company has chosen to really use ISO 9001 as a business management system. Their quality objectives are the overall success indicators for the company.

Don't know if this will help, different industry. I work in transportation. Our documented objectives are:
100% On time delivery
100% Damage Free delivery
0 Accidents and injuries
0 Customer complaints.

These are documented in our Quality Policy Statement included in our manual, and we posted them throught our system. We measure each of these on a regular basis. Are we at 100%? No, so in turn this also pushes us toward continual improvment. I collect and anaylze data, daily, weekly, quarterly. The ability is there to constantly gague our current status/sucess, and based on the information identify opportunities for improvment etc.

We just completed our first half of the transition audit for ISO 9001:2000 and passed. Hope this helps.

I have downloaded the attachments from howste and Sue. (Thanks!)

The following attachment is a page from our business plan. This is where I was going when our Auditor was here for our last surveillance audit (1994 rev.). He looked at alot of my half finished stuff (sort of a gap analysis for 2000 rev.) and this is what I showed him for measurable higher level goals. We are working on lower level goals that contribute to these as well. What he told me was he would be looking for the following measurables:

Productivity
Effectiveness
Efficiency
Cost of Quality
Cost of Non-Quality

So what I figured I would do is - once I've finished mapping out our processes, the management team will review all the identified processes. We will select the most critical processes and the ones where we know we have issues and determine goals and measurables.

I have also attached our Product Realization Process Map - this is a rough draft as of now. As an example, Contract Review and Job Processing are most critical to us as we repair or remanufacture machine details. Approximately half of our work at any given time is "RUSH" because somebody has a machine down while waiting for the part we are making or repairing. Hence, the objective of reducing lead time as described in our business plan, which relates to our Quality Policy in the first sentence.

For Contract Review our measurables are in the form of Effectiveness and Efficiency. Effectiveness is measured by a hit/miss quote ratio - meaning simply how many quotes out of how many end up PO'd. Efficiency is measured in "days to quote" - meaning the customer wanted the quote when (due date) and we submitted the quote when.

The data for both of these measureables already exist in the system, what I have to do now is go back and compile the data into a format (maybe pareto diagram or some kind of chart) in order to establish a baseline (where we are now) in order for the management team to decide on an achievable goal.

For Job Processing our measurables are in the form of Efficiency, this is already tracked on our Engineering Guide form. Each activity dates completion so this form shows what day we got the PO, what day the sales order was input, the day it went to Engineering, the day it was drawn and sent to the print checker, the date the drawing was approved and the day the Job Process Sheet and engineering drawing were released to the shop. What I am doing with this is determining what percentage of our lead time each activity took. We will study "where we are now" and determine a maximum percentage of lead time for each activity and rather than reacting to a trend, we will address each occurance above that maximum.

What do you guys think? Does it look like I'm on the right track? Any feedback would be appreciated.

PS - The thread titled "Can flowcharts replace procedures?" was very helpful to me. Especially the "Business Planning and Management Review" process map posted by Garry there. It shows KPI's at different levels, etc.

What he told me was he would be looking for the following measurables:

Productivity
Effectiveness
Efficiency
Cost of Quality
Cost of Non-QualityI just wanted to comment on this statement of your auditor. In one of your documents you stated that you would be registered to ISO 9001:2000 and AS9100 Rev. A. Nowhere in ISO 9001:2000 or AS 9100 Rev. A is there any requirement for measuring productivity, efficiency, or costs of any kind. If you do this it is by your choice, not your auditor's. That being said, I think they are great things to measure.

I think you are definitely off to a good start. Identifying objectives that will help you to measure the success of the company as a whole is important.

Your "process interaction - product realization.doc" is very good. It clearly shows the interactions of processes, including inputs and outputs.

BTW, I'm assuming that the "policy and goals only.doc" is an old version? It doesn't match what you posted above, and IMO doesn't meet the requirements of 9K2K.

I just wanted to comment on this statement of your auditor. In one of your documents you stated that you would be registered to ISO 9001:2000 and AS9100 Rev. A. Nowhere in ISO 9001:2000 or AS 9100 Rev. A is there any requirement for measuring productivity, efficiency, or costs of any kind. If you do this it is by your choice, not your auditor's. That being said, I think they are great things to measure.

BTW, I'm assuming that the "policy and goals only.doc" is an old version? It doesn't match what you posted above, and IMO doesn't meet the requirements of 9K2K.


That's exactly what I thought! Where does it say that!! However, I do also think they are good measurables. He went on to describe how alot of companies "war room". This actually made things clearer to the management team (myself included) and we've made great strides recently. I still don't know where it calls out specifically what to measure (he also said we should have 8-12 measurables, I don't know where it says that either) - but since I agree that these are just good business sense, I didn't bother to argue. Our auditor is a good one, I rarely disagree with him on interpretation issues. Some things the registrar requires - which kills me. EX: Our registrar requires that we conduct Management Reviews quarterly. We'll determine that, thank you very much! This is where I would utilize the space next to "Do not concur".

Actually - it is from our business plan. It is the first place I looked to when we set out to identify business objectives and our overall policies. The business plan describes market analysis, sales plans and targets for each market segment, etc. It is what the owner wants to do with this company over the next 5 years. Our auditor had the same opinion as you as far as not meeting the requirements. He is the one that suggested that I start by mapping out our processes and then use both documents to determine overall organizational goals and the lower level goals that would contribute to one or more higher level goals.

Thanks for your input!! It always helps to have "fresh eyes" outside of our organization take a look so I can tell how customers and auditors are going to perceive the content.

Howste and Cari,

Do you think the auditor was referencing the Quality Policy when stating the productivity, effectiveness etc. As this is the only way he can audit these measurables if in fact you have stated them in your Policy. My Auditor was very assertive when it came to our Policy when I changed to 9K2K. He'd never really worried about the Policy in the past and we treated it as a bit of a 'touchy feally' requirement of the standard rather than something we actually tried to achieve...but know if we state something we had better be able to back it up. We navigate thru 5.3 and 5.4.1 via our Business Plans for each department. They state our KPIs and these are our goals. It has worked thus far and in this way we don't have to write down separate specific goals in our manual. We just refer to our Business Plans. Hope this makes some sense.

Greg B

Hi Greg

Nope. Nothing like that is stated in our Policy or Objectives anywhere. He said he would need to see measurables for Productivity, Efficiency, Effectiveness, Cost of Quality and Cost of NonQuality and that we would need 8-12 measurable goals.

I have been waiting for a call back from our Auditor in order to ask him what his source was for these "requirements". He travels frequently for auditing - I'll let you guys know what he says when he gets back with me.

Here's a rough example of an approach that I've used with several clients of mine. The objectives are developed along with the quality policy (attached is an early draft of their objectives).

They then collected baseline measurements for each of the objectives on the list (some they already had historical data for). Some of objectives were unmeasurable or they didn't know how to measure them, so they tweaked them into something that they could. They reviewed the results to see if they were meaningful measures of success. In the end, they wound up with a good list of key indicators that are measurable and correspond with the quality policy.

Hopefully this will help a bit...

BTW, sometimes the quality policy changes as a result of looking at the objectives.

Howste,

The matrix is excellent. IMO everyone should use this type of matrix to ensure that they have thier objectives and metrics cross referenced and in one place so the registrar does not have to search high and wide through all of your documentation to find them. Our goals are in our business plans (KPIs) so are easy to locate but a matrix places them all in one place so everyone can see them.

Greg B

I have downloaded the attachments from howste and Sue. (Thanks!)
I have not seen anyhting so well done and simple. I have a tendance to anaylze too much. How did you document your internal process audits?
are your product audits defined at a frequency?
I cant use yours but I would love if I couldl get my president to buy into the policy and objectives. I am told I also need objectives form my Cusotmer oriented processes.

I just thought I'd add my thoughts, as I have a lot of strong feelings on the subject of objectives. Keep in mind that not all my guidance constitutes ISO 9001 requirements; it does, however, constitute the requirements of good business sense:

1) No matter what you do, don't call these metrics "quality
objectives." Call them business objectives, key measures, anything,
but not quality objectives. The moment you say those words, people
begin to think the objectives don't apply to them. They apply to the
quality department and they only relate to traditional quality issues.
You don't want people to have these misconceptions.

2) Base the business objectives (formerly called "quality objectives")
on the strategy of your company. Talk to your General Manager or CEO,
and ask him/her what matters most to the organization's long term
success. You might even have to assist them in coming to an
understanding of this. Whatever you learn is most important to the
organization, base the objectives on these issues. These could be
almost anything: revenue from new products, cash flow, inventory
turnover, whatever.

3) Clearly define the business objectives. Define everything about
them: where the data comes from, how often it's collected, how the
final number is calculated, etc. If you don't nail these details down,
the meaning of the objectives will drift...I promise. This is the
single best reason for documenting the objectives. Never mind that ISO
9001:2000 also requires documenting the objectives. Just don't
document the objectives in the Quality Manual. The definition of
business objectives is best accomplished in a stand-alone document.

4) Make sure that at least one of the business objectives relates to
customer perceptions. What is more important than what your customers
think? Nothing.

I've attached what I feel is a great example of objectives that a customer of mine developed.

Good luck,
CC

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Craig Cochran
Center for International Standards & Quality
Georgia Institute of Technology

Craig, I think every point you made hits the nail on the head!

Craig, I think every point you made hits the nail on the head!

Yes, true words. Management buy in to those concept is the key but presenting it in this format may help.

Howste and Cari,

Do you think the auditor was referencing the Quality Policy when stating the productivity, effectiveness etc. As this is the only way he can audit these measurables if in fact you have stated them in your Policy. My Auditor was very assertive when it came to our Policy when I changed to 9K2K. He'd never really worried about the Policy in the past and we treated it as a bit of a 'touchy feally' requirement of the standard rather than something we actually tried to achieve...but know if we state something we had better be able to back it up. We navigate thru 5.3 and 5.4.1 via our Business Plans for each department. They state our KPIs and these are our goals. It has worked thus far and in this way we don't have to write down separate specific goals in our manual. We just refer to our Business Plans. Hope this makes some sense.

Greg B

Howste & Greg

I spoke with our auditor and he said that those measurements are required by the new TS standard. I have not worked for a QS9000 company in years so I am not at all familiar with the TS standards that have been published since the QS third edition. Anyway, he was suggesting that I use that standard as "guidance" since they are just good business sense. I'm pretty sure he said he would "need" to see these measurables, but that probably was just a slip, he audits ISO and TS so I think he might sometimes mix 'em up when he's speaking.

Anyone interested can go to the thread titled "Is your company registered to ISO9001:2000". We just passed our desk audit and I have posted my complete policy manual. Page 6 is our Quality Policy and our documented objectives. Strategic goals are not something we want to show all of our competitors so they are more clearly spelled out (including targets) in our business plan. I finally wrote a manual that is not a regurgitation of the standard. It is short and sweet and it tells readers more about our organization in 15 pages than any 30 page manual I've written before. We intend to post it on our website and distribute it to all of our sales reps. This document is finally a useful marketing tool!! Our registration audit is scheduled for 9-8-03.

lday38 - Take a look at the manual referenced above. My audit schedule is not complete - that was one of two documents that I needed to finish after our desk audit as I did not want to put a lot of work into a couple of things until I had some input from our auditor first. I am attaching our 2004 Management Review and Audit Schedule. What I need to do now is plan the audits identifying which processes when. Frequencies for each process will be determined by the KPI's. Negative trends = more frequent auditing. Positive trends = normal schedule. As soon as I am finished I'll post it for you to look at.

Howste & Greg

I spoke with our auditor and he said that those measurements are required by the new TS standard.
Let us know later how the manual worked out during the audit.
I had orignal planned on a nice simple narrative based manual, but I ran out of time and did not quite feel very inspired while working on it... Maybe a future revision. That way we probably won't have to redo most of the manual with new ISO revision, just update a few things here and there and any major system wide changes...

Howste & Greg

I spoke with our auditor and he said that those measurements are required by the new TS standard. I have not worked for a QS9000 company in years so I am not at all familiar with the TS standards that have been published since the QS third edition. Anyway, he was suggesting that I use that standard as "guidance" since they are just good business sense. I'm pretty sure he said he would "need" to see these measurables, but that probably was just a slip, he audits ISO and TS so I think he might sometimes mix 'em up when he's speaking.
:bonk: He needs to verify things before he makes statements like that. Sounds like he was doing a little back-pedaling after you raised the question. :vfunny: Like I said above, I think they make good sense, but they're only required if your organization makes that determination (or goes for TS16949...).

Sounds like he was doing a little back-pedaling after you raised the question. :vfunny:

That's my take on it! Ah well, he is really a good auditor. As I may have mentioned before, I rarely disagree with him on "interpretation" issues. He has been our Auditor for 3 years now and I have not used the "Do Not Concur" option yet. His gigs are always value added and usually written against something I had been trying to get accomplished around here anyway. I appreciate a CAR from the auditor occasionally, every now and then I'll lead him right where I need the write up.

His gigs are always value added and usually written against something I had been trying to get accomplished around here anyway. I appreciate a CAR from the auditor occasionally, every now and then I'll lead him right where I need the write up.

Carrie,

I do the same thing. If I come up against a hurdle with management or others that won't accept a change or don't act on a quality issue etc. I lead the Auditor in that direction and his 'Words of encouragement' at our close out meetings usually does the trick (Very effective). We have had the same auditor for about 9 years.

Greg B ;)