Re: Can one have a single 'objective' to meet the requirements of an IMS ?
This would derail in semantics; such as what is an objective and what is a target? That a business have a goal of improving the bottom line would be obvious. The 3 targets you mention are high level Q, S & E objectives, respectively in themselves. But they would not necessarily lead to profitability improvement, especially in the short term. For example, in order to reduce injuries of the workforce, the organization might decide to invest significantly in acquiring better PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) and education (training). Some processes might be revised to enhance safety aspects, leading to lower productivity, in the short term. So, how you intend to reduce personnel injuries, might work against the bottom line results in the short term. Similar issues might apply to the Q&E targets/objectives.
So, in answer to the original question, I don't see the benefit of being creative and minimalistic when it comes to objectives associated with an IMS. The key, as always, is how to implement subsets of the business system that contribute to the success of an organization, in the short, medium and long terms.
Yes, I agree to the fact that the organizations may not gain in short term in lieu of what they invest to make an 'industry standard workplace', yet, given the real cost of injuries, lost work days, associated liabilities and the bad name they bring to the organizations, such an investment, as you pointed, would be full of worth in the long run.
Secondly, if we look at the issue from the operational standpoint, such an investment should be considered as part of the process design and regulatory compliance (in most cases). Further, it's also observed that investing in better technologies, better equipment and better people is always profitable though in medium or long term.
Similarly the target of reducing waste generation or preventing pollution does contribute to enhancing the bottomline even at the initial stage of organizational set up depending on the nature & scale of operations. It's also true that it's the manufacturing organizations that are benefited more than their service counterparts. I would like to quote two of the real examples of financial gains that I worked out by making significant investments towards reducing waste & air pollution.
(1) One of our intermediate products is limestone with an annual production of around 7 million tonnes. Around 20% of the mined out material, in early days, had to be rejected at source in order to maintain the desired product quality. By investing 1 million US$ towards purchase of an online sophisticated analyzer, we could reduce the amount of waste by 5% with an estimated annual cost of around 0.6 million US$. So the investment was paid back in less than 2 years.
(2) The cost of all the Air Pollution Control devices installed at our plant is around 30 million US$. I worked out that if we (hypothetically) didn't have any of them, we would be losing around 39.5 million US$ per annum in the form of precious material being lost into the surrounding air.
In short, it depends a lot on how things are perceived at the first place. In my experience, people in general understand and follow the procedures in a better way if they know the target set for them will add to (or subtract from) the bottomline in addition to creating a happy customer, a healthier environment and a safe place to work at. This supports what Jim has quoted in his above post
I think that another way to state your theory might be to say that a "quality" objective is unlikely to gain traction or be conscientiously supported unless it contributes to enhanced financial performance.
Thanks.