What are your 'Quality Objectives'?

[ccochran]

And that leads us back to the definition for quality, also in ISO 9000:

3.1.1 quality

degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfils requirements

So, whatever requirements the organization has commited to, and the organization's ability to meet these requirements, is "quality." Which means that quality objectives can be whatever the organization thinks they need to focus on in order to meet their commitments. It's not up to an auditor to decide, it's up to the organization.

Craig

 

[Paul Simpson]

And that leads us back to the definition for quality, also in ISO 9000:

3.1.1 quality

degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfils requirements

You need to follow the trail. As Sidney has posted, the definitions in 9000 (whichever edition you have ) apply and the terms characteristics and requirements are also defined. I'm not going to cut and paste year 2000 definitions here (to save further embaressment on my part) but suffice to say they point you to "product" and "process".

So, whatever requirements the organization has commited to, and the organization's ability to meet these requirements, is "quality." Which means that quality objectives can be whatever the organization thinks they need to focus on in order to meet their commitments. It's not up to an auditor to decide, it's up to the organization.

Craig

What you are proposing is a recipe for a completely elastic quality system where the organization determines what is important (no matter what the customer requirements say and legal obligations are) and puts in place measures related to these things it just "feels" like measuring.

It is the auditor's obligation to critique the objectives and targets. If there is sufficient evidence of quality objectives in and around other business objectives then no non conformity exists. If all the organization puts forward are "other" objectives or the company is under the misapprehension that business objectives satisfy clause 5.4.1 then I will have to tell them so.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

So, whatever requirements the organization has commited to, and the organization's ability to meet these requirements, is "quality."

Sorry. But based on that, one could say Enron was a "quality" organization. They (top management) were committed and able to deceive stakeholders for a long time. And they did a good job of finding auditors that agreed with them...

 

[RoxaneB]

I'll be honest...I hate the term quality objectives. Why? Because 'quality' is subjective. To our external auditor, it's quality of the product. To our internal customers, it's quality of our processes. To avoid confusion, we have business objectives. All areas, Quality, Environment, Safety, Production, etc. have metrics (routine and improvement) and improvement projects. As part of our planning process, we align the metrics with the objetives to show how we are improving to support (maybe enhance) how we meet the metric (i.e., improvement metric) or how we demonstrate stability within an objective (i.e., routine metric).

Having Quality objectives and Environmental objectives and Safety objectives and Production objectives, etc. merely supports the silo-approach to running a business.

In order to do more than survive, but to become a leader within your industry, one needs to understand how all the process connect and support one another...hence business objectives.

We do not run our business for ISO or ISRS or OHSAS. And when Sir or Madam Auditor comes onsite, this is made explicitly clear to them. Their scope of the audit is clear and they are informed to review the health of our system to the necessary requirements. To help them out, we have a lovely little matrix showing how their requirements fit within our system.

If they are unable to understand that we are a business with a dynamic and integrated management sytem, that is not our fault and we will request another auditor - or in one case, a new registrar.

 

[Paul Simpson]

I'll be honest...I hate the term quality objectives. Why? Because 'quality' is subjective.

The point Sidney, others and I have been trying to make - albeit not with a huge amount of success it appears - is that quality is not subjective if you consider it to be conformance to requirements for product or process.

To our external auditor, it's quality of the product.

True

To our internal customers, it's quality of our processes.

True

To avoid confusion, we have business objectives. All areas, Quality, Environment, Safety, Production, etc. have metrics (routine and improvement) and improvement projects. As part of our planning process, we align the metrics with the objetives to show how we are improving to support (maybe enhance) how we meet the metric (i.e., improvement metric) or how we demonstrate stability within an objective (i.e., routine metric).

This is fine for your system. That does not mean that all your "business" objectives are "quality" objectives (and within the scope of ISO 9001) it is just that you have more objectives running through the business than your auditor is required to audit. Think of quality being a subset of business but don't confuse objectives that relate to other disciplines with quality objectives - that only adds to the confusion that this thread has opened u as being prevalent among our professionals.

Having Quality objectives and Environmental objectives and Safety objectives and Production objectives, etc. merely supports the silo-approach to running a business.

Cannot agree. I am presuming I speak for others (please correct me if I am wrong) but we don't want to compartmentalize quality, far from it. We are just pointing out that business objectives, good in themselves, should not be presented as quality objectives unless they relate to product or process conformity. Full stop. Any business has a series of measures "at relevant functions and levels" that relate to a whole bunch of disciplines - great.

Some I am interested in, some I am not.
Some I am competent to assess, some I am not.

In order to do more than survive, but to become a leader within your industry, one needs to understand how all the process connect and support one another...hence business objectives.

Fine but you shouldn't expect to put a whole series of business objectives in front of a quality auditor and expect a clean bill of health if there are no objectives that relate to product or process conformance with requirements. If you do this and the auditor doesn't raise a NC then they have not audited your system properly. Luckily there are a lot of business objectives that have a "quality" angle so it shouldn't be too difficult.

We do not run our business for ISO or ISRS or OHSAS.

Nobody expects you to.

However, if you put your system up for assessment against any of the standards / schemes mentioned then I, for one would expect you to have a system that meets all of the requirements of all of the standards. Without it I cannot, with a clear conscience, give you a certificate that says you do.

And when Sir or Madam Auditor comes onsite, this is made explicitly clear to them. Their scope of the audit is clear and they are informed to review the health of our system to the necessary requirements. To help them out, we have a lovely little matrix showing how their requirements fit within our system.

If they are unable to understand that we are a business with a dynamic and integrated management sytem, that is not our fault and we will request another auditor - or in one case, a new registrar.

You can have a dynamic system and not meet the standard. There are many good businesses that don't use ISO 9001 as a model and do very well, thank you.

Similarly there are many company's with dynamic integrated systems who have a perfectly healthy relationship with their auditors and welcome the challenges and external viewpoint they bring.


Don't always blame the auditor if they don't agree with you -the problem may even be the company's interpretation. :mg:

 

[RoxaneB]

The point Sidney, others and I have been trying to make - albeit not with a huge amount of success it appears - is that quality is not subjective if you consider it to be conformance to requirements for product or process.

The problem is that while I agree with that definition, ISO 9001 focuses on the quality of the product and the processes required to make that product to ensure Customer satisfaction. It does not prescribe to the concept of Stakeholder satisfaction - meaning Customer, Community, Team, Suppliers and Shareholders.

So, Organizations work on such quality objectives such as Keep the Customers Happy, Produce Less Rework, Increase Utilization. By keeping these objectives so focused on the Customer, my own experience has shown that the other processes like Safety and Environment have projects and goals, but the clear link as to why we are doing them didn't exist.

This is fine for your system. That does not mean that all your "business" objectives are "quality" objectives (and within the scope of ISO 9001) it is just that you have more objectives running through the business than your auditor is required to audit. Think of quality being a subset of business but don't confuse objectives that relate to other disciplines with quality objectives - that only adds to the confusion that this thread has opened u as being prevalent among our professionals.

Far from confusing the issues, my own experience with my company has shown that the multiple linkages between processes and objectives has helped understanding. Our own operators can look at metric in their area and say not only what they are track and how, but why they track it and who (and what) it impacts.

The objectives are for the business. The metrics and their control limits or goals are specific to Quality or Safety or Environment or Production and so on.

Cannot agree. I am presuming I speak for others (please correct me if I am wrong) but we don't want to compartmentalize quality, far from it. We are just pointing out that business objectives, good in themselves, should not be presented as quality objectives unless they relate to product or process conformity. Full stop. Any business has a series of measures "at relevant functions and levels" that relate to a whole bunch of disciplines - great.

Unfortunately, by having merely quality objectives, some of our employees said, "That doesn't impact me. I don't touch the product." We didn't like that. So we have a collection of business objectives so that every employee is aware that they play a role within our business...that everyone contributes and everyone is important. Just because an individual may not touch the product, they may have an impact elsewhere. Slowly, our walls between departments and processes are being knocked down and this encourages all of us to move together in the same direction...that is towards the company vision.

Fine but you shouldn't expect to put a whole series of business objectives in front of a quality auditor and expect a clean bill of health if there are no objectives that relate to product or process conformance with requirements. If you do this and the auditor doesn't raise a NC then they have not audited your system properly. Luckily there are a lot of business objectives that have a "quality" angle so it shouldn't be too difficult.

Fair enough. Let me add to my explanation that all departments have metrics that must align with at least one objective. If the Quality Control department had objectives which didn't align with any business objective, one of two things would happen. We would either review their metrics and assess how meaningful they were or we would decide that since QC is not helping the company achieve objectives, the QC Department is apparently not needed. Our nonconformance numbers obviously indicate that the latter is not the case.

During an ISO 9001 audit, the focus is on the QC indicators and the alignment and support given to the business objectives...as well as the contribution.

Similarly there are many company's with dynamic integrated systems who have a perfectly healthy relationship with their auditors and welcome the challenges and external viewpoint they bring.

Don't always blame the auditor if they don't agree with you -the problem may even be the company's interpretation. :mg:

I've hardly said that I'm blaming the auditor. What I am saying is that they expect me to have something clearly called a quality objective, I will fight that with every fibre of my being. As you said, there are business objectives with a clear cut quality focus. If our system does not meet the requirements, I can accept that. But I will not make the system pretty just for the auditor because they like things mirroring ISO. When an auditor comes here, some digging and explaining may be required because nothing says ISO 9001 or ISO 14001 or ISRS. Our matrix showing how the requirements of these standards align within our systems helps out, but we will not necessary match the wording of the standard just because the auditor wants it. There is no benefit or value for us to do that.

 

[ccochran]

Keep an eye out for the February issue of Quality Digest. I'll have an article in there entitled "The 10 Biggest Quality Mistakes." One of the biggest mistakes will be Limiting Quality Objectives to Traditional Quality Topics...

Craig

 

[RoxaneB]

Keep an eye out for the February issue of Quality Digest. I'll have an article in there entitled "The 10 Biggest Quality Mistakes." One of the biggest mistakes will be Limiting Quality Objectives to Traditional Quality Topics...

Craig

I just received December 2006's copy.

 

[SteelMaiden]

I just received December 2006's copy.

So, by May, you ought to get it?

 

[ccochran]

The print edition of QD is often very slow to arrive. The web version arrives immediately, though!