While ISO does not require financial measures, I do believe that quality and profit are closely linked. Bad quality will hurt profit through scrap, rework, lost customers, etc. Quality cannot guarantee profit - nothing stops you from intentionally selling things for less than they cost - but the contract review process should be used to ensure you are capable of selling something for a profit. (Ignoring the possibilities of non-profits using ISO).
I see where you are coming from, and I completely agree.
Closely linked but not correlated.
In my opinion, A correlation would reflect a positive or negative association, for instance: The statement "if we have poor product and service quality we will not be profitable" could be considered TRUE but "if we have good quality than we will be profitable" could be considered FALSE. Because as you stated, you could be selling things for minimal profit or less than cost, even if your quality and service is outstanding. If one statement is true then the other has to be also for it to be considered a correlation (am i thinking about this correctly?) For me, it was really a question of ISO requirements. Hence, I do not see how an analysis of profitability and gross margin could be reflective of quality or be considered a "quality policy"
Given the small size of our company, our president does his "state of the union" profit assessment on his own and acts accordingly. If I can keep it that way (which I believe he prefers) and not have to contribute it to my quality policies and the additional statisical analysis I already perform, it just makes a smoother QMS system from me to control.
It's really a question of necessity for documentation, as the "system" and "analysis" is in place, but separate from our QMS because I personally felt it wasn't involved with quality.
tomvehoski you have been very helpful to me today and I sure do appreciate it.
