Auditing continual improvement
In the third in our series of guidance documents by the ISO 9001 Auditing Practices Group, the focus is on auditing continual improvement
How much improvement is 'enough'? The requirement in ISO 9001 is for continual improvement of the effectiveness of the QMS. Continual improvement emanates from the objectives set by top management, which should - at the very least - address:
- the improvement of internal efficiency for the organization to remain economically competitive
- individual customer needs
- the level of performance that the market normally expects
For example, in the aeronautical sector, the acceptable rate of non-conforming delivered product is zero per cent, so it would not be useful for the organization to set objectives for an improvement in this rate. However, it would be useful for the organization to have objectives aimed at improving its internal efficiency and its competitiveness (eg through innovation).
Setting objectives
The auditor should seek to determine if the auditee has attempted to set objectives that establish the correlation between three factors:
- corporate objectives
- customer needs
- market expectations
Thereafter, it is up to the organization to balance the need for improving internal efficiency and the need to progress with external performance, although the two are very often closely related. Neither one in isolation can ever be considered as being enough or not enough.
One area which can be problematic for the auditor is to know what is a reasonable market benchmark. Taking the aeronautical example: if the organization announced that it had improved from a level of 50 per cent non-conforming product delivered to 40 per cent, this would demonstrate continual improvement. However, this would hardly be acceptable, given the industry sector's zero per cent normal rate. However, if it announced that it had set an objective to improve its performance from 0.50 per cent to 0.40 per cent, this would be much nearer the market norm. The only real solution for the auditor is to verify how the organization has determined this proposed rate of improvement, how it has evaluated the associated risks, and how this relates to customer requirements and the monitoring of feedback on customer satisfaction. It would be almost impossible to issue a non-conformance report stating: 'There was not enough continual improvement.'
Sifting through the evidence
What sort of information is relevant and where can we find it? The auditor has to verify how the overall corporate objectives have been translated into internal requirements throughout the appropriate processes, and how these requirements are communicated and monitored. So the auditor should look for evidence that the organization is analyzing data from process monitoring, and is then taking the results forward for evaluating process efficiency and/or improving process output. One point that should be specifically examined is the consistency in the way in which the improvement of any one process contributes to meeting the overall objectives, to ensure that this will not cause conflict in the achievement of other objectives.
The type of information that an auditor needs to look for is evidence of how the corporate objectives are translated into specific QMS objectives. For example: an organization could set an objective to reduce customer complaints by 30 per cent. The top management analysis shows that 50 per cent of the complaints are concerned with overdue deliveries. The auditor should then look for evidence that the organization is monitoring and analyzing key aspects of its scheduling and planning activities, throughout its processes and the process interfaces, to reduce delays.
Improving the process or the QMS?
An auditor should remember that it is unrealistic to expect an organization to make progress in all potential improvements simultaneously. Each improvement will require the commitment of resources, which may need prioritization by top management, especially where investments are needed. Instead, the auditor should seek to ensure that the improvement objectives are consistent overall, and are coherent with the three factors (corporate objectives, market needs and customer expectations).
However, an organization that does not have a policy and objectives relating to continual improvement is clearly not complying with the standard. Similarly, the absence of any evidence of improvement on at least one of these aspects would have to be considered as indicating that an organization's quality policy is not in line with ISO 9001. A word of warning: there is no requirement that the organization should set objectives for improving all its processes at any one time. As in the above example about reducing customer complaints: some processes may not be deemed by top management to contribute significantly to the reduction of delays, and it is normal, therefore, that the organization would not concentrate on these areas.
If top management has set a realistic objective for a process and there is no evidence of improvement, this information must be fed back into the management review so that top management can decide what type of action is appropriate - for example, re-adjusting the objective or providing other means to impact on the process.
This article is an edited version of 'Auditing
continual improvement' from the website of the ISO 9001 Auditing Practices
Group, and is reproduced courtesy of ISO and the IAF. These papers
were developed on current best practice and therefore have not been
formally endorsed as IAF guidance or ISO TC176 interpretations. For
further information about the
Auditing Practices Group visit www.iso.org/tc176/ISO9001AuditingPracticesGroup.
The ISO 9001 Auditing Practices Group is an informal group of QMS experts, auditors and practitioners drawn from the ISO Technical Committee 176 Quality Management and Quality Assurance (ISO/TC 176) and the IAF. It has developed a number of guidance papers and presentations that contain explanations about the auditing of QMSs. These reflect the process-based approach that is essential for auditing the requirements of ISO 9001:2000 Quality management systems - requirements.
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