HELP: Tips/Example for creating "documented" Quality Objectives.

B

Bob_M

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.
 

CarolX

Trusted Information Resource
take it one at a time

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
 
B

Bob_M

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.
 
S

Sue

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.
 

Attachments

  • objectives-metrics.doc
    25.5 KB · Views: 1,998

howste

Thaumaturge
Trusted Information Resource
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.
 

Attachments

  • quality policy-objectives.doc
    30 KB · Views: 2,167

howste

Thaumaturge
Trusted Information Resource
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.
 
C

C Emmons

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.
 

Cari Spears

Super Moderator
Leader
Super Moderator
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.
 

Attachments

  • policy and goals only.doc
    29 KB · Views: 973
  • process interaction - product realization.doc
    47 KB · Views: 2,169

howste

Thaumaturge
Trusted Information Resource
Cari Spears said:
What he told me was he would be looking for the following measurables:

Productivity
Effectiveness
Efficiency
Cost of Quality
Cost of Non-Quality
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.

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.
 

Cari Spears

Super Moderator
Leader
Super Moderator
howste said:
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.
 
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