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

[Greg B]

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

 

[Cari Spears]

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.

 

[Greg B]

Looks Good

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

 

[lday38]

Congratulations

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.

 

[ccochran]

Example of strategic objectives

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

 

[howste]

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

 

[lday38]

to the point and thank you

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.

 

[Cari Spears]

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.

 

[Bob_M]

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]

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.

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. 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...).