At White Pine Business Solutions, we understand the importance of establishing quality objectives in any organization’s quality management system. Quality objectives serve as the backbone of your quality program, providing a clear direction for your organization to focus on continuous improvement and customer satisfaction. They are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals that align with your overall goals and objectives.
By establishing effective and SMART objectives, you can better align your employees and departments, provide a means of measuring your success, and identify areas for improvement. In this output, we will explore in more detail what quality objectives are, how to establish them, and why they are essential for the success of your organization’s quality management system.
Here is a summary of the what, where, when, how, and why of establishing quality objectives:
What are they?
Quality the management or improvement goals that an organization sets to maintain and improve the quality of its products, services, and processes. They are a first-level driver of the commitments that you made in your quality policy.
Where should you use them?
Quality objectives should be established at all levels of the organization, from top management down to individual departments and employees. Top level objectives are incredibly useful to help drive progress towards your Quality Policy goals. As your organization grows and you are ready to drive that continuous improvement further toward your goals, we find that general best practice is to generate core quality objectives for the business and then create tiered, actionable objectives for each area of your business that are focused on how that area can impact each of the core objectives.
When should you use them?
Quality objectives should be established at the beginning of a new project, at the start of a new fiscal year, or when there is a need for improvement in a particular area of the organization. They are a requirement of ISO9000 and AS9100, so if you are just getting started, now is the time. You likely already have relevant business goals to pull from, but the quality policy that you thoughtfully generated should also provide guidance!
How to develop them?
Quality objectives should be established using the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) criteria. They should be aligned with the organization’s overall goals and objectives and should be communicated clearly to all employees.
Why do you need them?
Establishing quality objectives helps an organization to focus on continuous improvement and customer satisfaction. It provides a clear direction for the organization and helps to align all employees with the organization’s overall goals and objectives. They also provide a means of measuring the success of the quality management system and identifying areas for improvement.
Here are 5 good examples of Quality Objectives
- Increase customer satisfaction ratings to 95% by the end of the fiscal year through implementation of customer feedback program and process improvements.
- Reduce manufacturing defects by 10% by the end of the quarter through implementation of an improved quality control system.
- Achieve 100% compliance with all regulatory requirements by the end of the year through regular audits and process improvements.
- Increase employee training and development by providing at least 40 hours of training per employee per year to enhance skills and knowledge.
- Increase on-time delivery to customers by 15% through improved production planning and scheduling.
Summary
In this post, we explored the importance of establishing quality objectives in any organization’s quality management system. Quality objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals that serve as the backbone of your quality program. By establishing effective objectives, your organization can focus on continuous improvement and customer satisfaction, align employees and departments, measure success, and identify areas for improvement.
At White Pine Business Solutions, we specialize in helping organizations establish effective quality management systems, including developing and implementing quality objectives. If you need assistance in establishing quality objectives or improving your organization’s quality management system, please do not hesitate to reach out to us for guidance and support.
If you haven’t written that Quality Policy yet, check out our Quality Policy article HERE!
Still need a copy of the standards?
Here are some links where you can buy the standards: ISO9001:2015 and AS9100 Rev D
