ISO Quality Policy & Objectives

You can use quality policy objectives to define the activities your employees have to carry out to achieve company goals. The International Organization for Standardization, or ISO, specifies that your quality policy objectives must align with customer needs and satisfy customer requirements. Aligning those objectives with company goals helps increase customer satisfaction while improving company performance. The idea is to design a quality assurance plan that translates general objectives into specific actions.

Quality Policies Support Business Goals

The first step in setting up ISO quality policy objectives is to establish overall business goals. From these goals you can derive activities that further them. Quality policies guide the activities to ensure that they result in the desired level of quality. For example, your business strategy might be to offer a rugged product that meets the needs of outdoor enthusiasts. You have to test the product for strength and try it out in the field to make sure it meets the needs of target customers. Quality policies specify the procedures to be followed for testing and for field trials.

Quality Objectives Align With Policies

To establish quality objectives, define levels of measurable quantities that reflect how well your policies are performing. For example, if you want to manufacture rugged products, specify that in-house testing results must achieve at least a 99 percent pass rate and field testing pass rates must be 98 percent or higher. Such pass rates mean that your quality policies are performing effectively and the resulting high levels of customer satisfaction will help you reach your overall business goals.

Controls Measure Progress

Quality controls are the measures you use to determine whether your quality policies meet the specified quality objectives. Controls give you access to the processes that influence how your quality polices perform. For example, if internal testing results of your products have a quality objective of a 99 percent pass rate and the actual pass rate is 95 percent, you have to use your controls to find the source of the discrepancy. Your controls in testing may show that the most frequent cause of failure is that a product handle breaks off. You can study the manufacturing process to find out whether the problem lies with design or with the material and identify the root cause.

Corrective Action Helps Achieve Objectives

Once you miss your quality objectives and have found the cause, you have to institute corrective action to fix the problem. Corrective action focuses on the specific failure of the quality policies to maintain the required level of quality. For example, if you find that the problem lies with a low-quality material, you have to determine whether an existing specification is not being met or whether the specification is missing the necessary requirements. Corrective action might include revising the specification, asking the supplier to meet the existing or revised specification or changing suppliers. Corrective action lets you fix your policies to make sure you meet the quality objectives and the overall business goals.

by Bert Markgraf

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