ISO 9001:2015 4.4.1 (c) Process Effectiveness

S

Shanew

During our transition audit, the auditor sited a minor nonconformance because we did not sufficiently comply with clause 4.4.1 (c).

We do some very large tender submissions, typically to government agencies. We do post mortem reviews but have not established any formal measurements of effectiveness.

As part of our response, we need to provide a list of key processes that we will establish measurements of effectiveness for.

If anyone has experience establishing such measurements for nonstandard manufacturing type processes I would appreciate your thoughts. I have to propose the 10 ten processes to evaluate to Sr. Leadership next week.

Thanks in advance,

Shane
 

Golfman25

Trusted Information Resource
During our transition audit, the auditor sited a minor nonconformance because we did not sufficiently comply with clause 4.4.1 (c).

We do some very large tender submissions, typically to government agencies. We do post mortem reviews but have not established any formal measurements of effectiveness.

As part of our response, we need to provide a list of key processes that we will establish measurements of effectiveness for.

If anyone has experience establishing such measurements for nonstandard manufacturing type processes I would appreciate your thoughts. I have to propose the 10 ten processes to evaluate to Sr. Leadership next week.

Thanks in advance,

Shane

What metrics and measurements are you keeping today? Take those and cross reference them to the applicable processes.
 

AMIT BALLAL

Super Moderator
Effectiveness measures will be to measure output / quality of the output of the process.

For example, for tender submission process, you want business against the tenders submitted (If I understood correctly).
In this case, effectiveness measure would be No. of tenders submitted Vs converted in business (Hit rate) in %
 

John Broomfield

Leader
Super Moderator
During our transition audit, the auditor sited a minor nonconformance because we did not sufficiently comply with clause 4.4.1 (c).

We do some very large tender submissions, typically to government agencies. We do post mortem reviews but have not established any formal measurements of effectiveness.

As part of our response, we need to provide a list of key processes that we will establish measurements of effectiveness for.

If anyone has experience establishing such measurements for nonstandard manufacturing type processes I would appreciate your thoughts. I have to propose the 10 ten processes to evaluate to Sr. Leadership next week.

Thanks in advance,

Shane

Shane,

We know a process is effective if it is fulfilling its objectives. Your organization may already have criteria for starting a process and criteria used when monitoring a process.

In short, find out what the process team member (preferably the process owner) looking for when starting, running and stopping the process.

Your selling process may have something like the objective:

“To generate enough opportunities to win the contracts we need to sustain the business”.

Beyond every tender conforming to the RFP requirements, your success rate in tendering may depend on the type and volume of opportunities generated by your organization’s marketing and selling.

The good news is that if your organization already is in business and successful at it, all you have to do is spend some time with the people who do the work (process) to capture their criteria for knowing when to start the process, how to drive the process, when to correct the process and when to stop it.

This usually follows a session or two with top management to determine the processes that are essential to the success of their organization and to name the process owners.

Better to understand your current system of interacting processes than to invent measures of process effectiveness. If you find a new measure is necessary then ask the people who do the work what criteria and method they use or would prefer to use.

Best wishes,

John
 

John Broomfield

Leader
Super Moderator
Not if the objectives are wrong or misguided in some way. This happens more often than you might think. An "effective" process is one that has been optimized--it operates as well as can be expected, given the known constraints.

Jim,

Fair point except that ISO currently defines effectiveness as the extent to which planned activities are realized and planned results achieved.

Perhaps ISO/TC 176 will adopt your definition soon.

John
 

Sidney Vianna

Post Responsibly
Leader
Admin
Your selling process may have something like the objective:

“To generate enough opportunities to win the contracts we need to sustain the business”.
That's one of the least spoken about issues concerning ISO 9001 and it's industry derivatives.

In the context of ISO 9001 and the QMS, the ability of the process in delivering it's quality objectives is what we should be concerned with.

To generate enough opportunities....is a critical business objective and every for-profit business has to ensure that objective is fulfilled. However, as we, quality practitioners are tired of knowing, sometimes, the business will use underhanded tactics such as false advertising, lying salesmen, deceiving practices as bait and switch, etc...in order to generate business opportunities that flow through the sales pipeline and become a contract....just to turn in to a dissatisfied customer, because they were misled to believe something the supplier can not deliver.

So, I would offer a slight suggestion to John's sentence and state that, in the context of ISO 9001 (and it's derivatives)

We know a process is effective if it is fulfilling its quality objectives.
 

John Broomfield

Leader
Super Moderator
Sidney,

Yes, a sale based on a lie is a sale not worth having.

As is including nonconforming product when measuring productivity.

We need to develop organizational culture where business objectives are quality objectives and vice versa.

Such as serving customers well so they create even more customers.

Business objectives should be quality too otherwise we’re in trouble.

Although I will admit that companies like Enron probably still think quality is optional.

John
 

dsanabria

Quite Involved in Discussions
During our transition audit, the auditor sited a minor nonconformance because we did not sufficiently comply with clause 4.4.1 (c).

We do some very large tender submissions, typically to government agencies. We do post mortem reviews but have not established any formal measurements of effectiveness.

As part of our response, we need to provide a list of key processes that we will establish measurements of effectiveness for.

If anyone has experience establishing such measurements for nonstandard manufacturing type processes I would appreciate your thoughts. I have to propose the 10 ten processes to evaluate to Sr. Leadership next week.

Thanks in advance,

Shane

At a minimum - meet the requirements of 9.1.3 Analysis and evaluation
 

AndyN

Moved On
During our transition audit, the auditor sited a minor nonconformance because we did not sufficiently comply with clause 4.4.1 (c).

What does this mean? "Sufficiently" is an opinion. Please tell us exactly what was reported. I smell an audit rat...
 
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