QUALITY MANAGEMENT

What is a Quality Objective?

Objectives are defined as desired results. Therefore “Quality Objective” is an “objective whose aim is to improve quality”. Adapted from ISO 9000 Quality Management Systems

The notes section of ISO 9000 includes:

• A company usually bases its quality policy is its quality objectives.
• A company’s quality objectives are usually particular for applicable purposes, aims and methods.
• An objective can be planned, calculated, or functioning.

Top management put together the company’s quality objectives, and they can be particular to divisions, methods, groups or ventures. They set out the aims connecting the importance of products, services and processes. Using the SMART structure is essential: SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.

Specific – this means you need to identify what it is you want to achieve.  For instance, at Safety Risk Management, we want to enhance our revenue by 40% for the next financial year.

Measurable – baseline data is required to measure your objective. For example, at SRM, we measure our objective by comparing it to the previous year’s income. We use Mango to measure how we work towards this target, which helps us know if we are ahead, behind, or on track.

Attainable – ‘Is this objective realistic?’ and ‘Is it out of reach?’ Increasing our profit by 40% is an achievable goal as we reached a 40% increase in the previous financial year.

Realistic – This is where many companies go wrong. It’s excellent to have ambition; however, you need to do this logically. For SRM, a 40% increase is reasonable. But the objective needs to be complicated. Maintaining a growth rate of 40% will be a challenge for SRM regarding the amount of work, but we believe it’s achievable.

Timely – goals need to have a time limit.  Declaring that SRM will see a 40% increase in revenue is too fluid.  To focus on employees and resources, you need to specify the time limit you will achieve this. Will it be in four months, six months or yearly?

It is vital to ensure all personnel agree with the quality objectives and recognise what they will achieve. Employees should already have the policy objectives instilled into them to understand them, as the quality objectives will flow from this. Making sure staff understand the quality objectives will help reach them, together with increasing morale. Quality Managers can set quality objectives for specific departments; there can also be various quality objectives.

 Some popular types are:

• Durability Objectives – how many hours of use a product will achieve
• Defect Objectives – the portion of end products that have faults and therefore are not compliant
• Timeliness Objectives – the ratio of products or services that are delivered on time
• Availability Objectives – a goal regarding the availability of a product or service
• Customer Service Objectives – the amount of positive or negative reviews the company receives, therefore demonstrating client satisfaction or lack thereof