ISO 9001:2015 – Newsletter – Issue 78

Clause 9.1 Monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation:  This Clause contains three (3) sub-clauses,  Sub-Clause 9.1.1 (General), Sub-Clause 9.1.2 (Customer satisfaction) and Sub-Clause 9.1.3 (Analysis and evaluation). The first and last sub-clauses (9.1.1 & 9.1.3) asks you to determine how you plan on measuring the performance of all of your processes identified within your Quality Management System (QMS)… which pretty much covers all of your business processes.  It also asks how you plan to “analyse” all of the data you collect so that you can “evaluate” what action needs to be taken.  Collecting and compiling reams and reams of data provides little benefit to anyone.  The way I approach the question “what should I measure?” is to start with the key (or vital few) objectives that the business has set for itself for the upcoming fiscal year.  Next I want to identify the key process(es) that will achieve those important business objectives.  Now I want to outline what critical measures tell me the most about how each those key processes are performing.  This then becomes your core list of measures that you will track, analyse and evaluate on at least a weekly basis.

I view sub-clause 9.1.2 (Customer satisfaction) as one of the most important sections of ISO 9001:2015, and the most critical area to measure for your business.  Many organizations struggle for good measures of Customer satisfaction, which makes them vulnerable to losing their Customers to competitors.  The best practices in this area typically involve initiating frequent dialogue with the Customer and regularly soliciting feedback directly from them.  In addition, mapping the Customer touch-points with your business processes, where contact is made peer-to-peer, is another good approach for collecting feedback from your Customer.  In other words, conversations between your Shipping area and their Receiving area; your Quality area and theirs; your Technical folks and theirs; your accounts receivable and their accounts payable; etc… these are all touch-points where feedback can be gathered and analysed.

Clause 9.2  Internal audit:  This Clause contains two (2) sub-clauses, Sub-Clause 9.2.1 and Sub-Clause 9.2.2, neither of which have titles on them.  This “internal audit tool” is not typically used to its full advantage in most companies.  If I am a Manager or Supervisor why would I want an unbiased assessment of the processes under my control?  Well, for starters, it allows me to be a first responder for a process breakdown that could escalate into a bigger headache.  Second, it can be used to help bring discipline to my processes, and to the people who operate within them.  Third, the internal auditor just might stumble upon a great improvement project that my Team missed.  Fourth, internal auditors are like a human suggestion box system, so this activity will provide me feedback on ideas/thoughts from my Team that I may not hear if I ask them directly.  Lots of upside and little downside… and all it costs you is a little bit of your time once a year.  Like I said above, most people don’t leverage the benefits of getting an audit done of their area.

Clause 9.3  Management review:  This Clause contains three (3) sub-clauses, Sub-Clause 9.3.1 (General), Sub-Clause 9.3.2 (Management review inputs) and Sub-Clause 9.3.3 (Management review outputs).  Sub-Clause 9.3.1 (General) includes a very direct connection to your “Business” by asking you to make sure that your Quality Management System (QMS) is aligned with the “strategic direction” of your organization.  This is a new requirement but one that makes good sense to implement properly.  Most Managers/Supervisors do a pretty good job of “reviewing” how they are doing against their targets/goals however I find that they do this mostly at a micro level (day to day results).  They rarely step back and look at a bigger time-slice of the data available to them.  This Clause asks you to do just that… look at the bigger picture and look at a bigger list of topics… doing so may avoid this from happening: “I can’t see the forest for the trees”!