QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM ISO 9001:2015 CLAUSE 6.2 QUALITY OBJECTIVES

INTRODUCTION

When you develop your Quality Objectives, there are many things to take into account. Leadership is working with goals and vision; management is working with objectives. Both are imperative in this case vision informs the development of ISO 9001 quality objectives.

At a grassroots level, objectives are what you want to do or accomplish.  For example, if you are going on holiday, you decide when you would like to arrive.  As a result, to get there on time, you need to know how long it will take, including stopping for food, the bathroom and petrol.  In addition, you also need to know how much money you have for the journey.

For this reason, establishing objectives follows the same process.  You can’t just grab ideas out of thin air; you need to be organised and give them considerable attention.

Therefore, you need to think about the following:

• Your Quality Policy – what does it say?
• What are your company’s goals?
• What are your department’s goals?

SMART OBJECTIVES

Achieving ISO 9001 certification, your quality objectives must link to your Quality Policy and relate to your Quality Management System.  It is essential to use the SMART structure (Smart, 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 objectives. For example, at SRM, we measure our objectives by comparing them to the previous year’s income. We use Mango Compliance Software to measure how we work towards this target and helps us know if we are ahead, behind, or on track.

Attainable – ‘Is this objective realistic?’ or ‘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 is wonderful to have ambition; however, you need to do this logically. For SRM, a 40% increase is reasonable. But the objective needs to be challenging.  Maintaining a growth rate of 40% will be problematic regarding the amount of work; despite this, 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 up in the air.  To focus on employees and resources, you need to specify the time limit to achieve this. Will it be in four months, six months or yearly.

HOW TO DETERMINE YOUR QUALITY OBJECTIVES

Begin by reviewing your non-conformances and customer complaints, thus, showing where the company can improve.  Also, depending on the company’s size, decide on the number of objectives your business should have.  You don’t need many objectives but rather one objective for each division.  Some companies like to have 2 – 3 objectives per division: short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals.  Suppose this is the route you decide to follow. In that case, Top Management must acknowledge the success when the departments reach their short-term goals, furthermore, helping to encourage the staff that the objectives are realistic.

“You mustn’t put multiple objectives in place for each department; otherwise, it makes it hard to focus”.

Safety Risk Management consists of five divisions: Sales, Marketing, Consulting, Support and Finance.  Every division has to attempt to reach different targets, and each goal must be applicable, together with improving customer satisfaction and the quality of your products and services.

HOW TO OVERCOME OBSTACLES TO ACHIEVE OBJECTIVES

Sharing the objectives with the company is one section that can be a challenge; however, if you want to realise these objectives, then sharing them is essential.  The best route is to organise a meeting.

The items on the agenda should be:

1. Examine every objective in detail.
2. Every objective should have a strategy and timeline.
3. How each employee will contribute.
4. Ascertain a staff member who is accountable for achieving the objectives.
5. Give each employee a record of the objectives and what they should do you achieve them.
6. Finally, ask questions and listen to their input

At SRM, we held a meeting, following each of the above, which was very successful.  The employees understood how they fit into the picture of achieving each objective.

USE SHEQ SOFTWARE TO ACHIEVE OBJECTIVES

We utilised Mango Software Compliance to input our company objectives.  Consequently, each employee had access to the objectives whenever they wanted to look at them.  SRM and many of our clients use Mango Compliance Software –

www.mangolive.com  Mango makes it easier to get ISO 9001:2015 certification.

HOW TO KEEP ON TRACK

However, if you find yourself falling behind in meeting your objectives, don’t worry.  For example, your strategy in achieving your objectives may not be reasonable, therefore positioning you to be unsuccessful.  Additionally, you may not have the means to achieve your objectives.  So, frequently checking your objectives is crucial, enabling you to know when you are moving in the wrong direction and fix it.

Not only could you find yourself failing, but also you may underachieve on your objectives.  Reconsider and amend them so that you achieve a superior outcome.

IN CONCLUSION

1. When developing your quality objectives, utilise the SMART structure.
2. Involve the employees in setting up your quality objectives.
3. Examine your non-conformances and customer complaints if you are battling to think of ideas.
4. Each employee must have access to the objectives and what they should do to achieve them. Using Mango Compliance Software can help with this.
5. Check the process.
6. Assess the outcomes.

SRM is ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015 and ISO 45001:2018 certified. Contact our consultants today. Let us know if we can help you with the development and implementation of your Quality Management System.