Quality Policy

Every organisation drives to achieve a particular outcome every day. We see that outcome as the products or services the business offers. Behind those outcomes, lie some simple principles. These principles, summed up in the Quality Policy, are the essence by which people view and judge the organisation. They represent the character of the organisation and the reason for its success.

The organisations’ principles also reflect the values of the Management.  The management values indicate to everyone the ‘standards’ upheld by the organisation. They tell the staff, its customers and investors, what great products or services the organisation aspires to provide.

In successful organisations, those principles form the framework the Management uses to make their decisions. Those principles embody the success of the business. The principles sum up how the organisation works. So, they act as guides for the organisation and keeps it working toward one purpose.

The “Quality Policy” is the top-level commitment that crystalises these principles into a readable form. It represents the commitment of the Management to a strategic direction. In other words, the Quality Policy is at the heart of the organisation, its work processes and, ultimately, its success.

WHAT SHOULD A QUALITY POLICY DO?

A clearly stated Quality Policy focusses your staff on the organisation’s goals. It aims to make employees understand that their work affects the quality of the product or the service. It tells your staff that the quality of their work affects the ultimate success of the business.

To that end, Management Standards require a written, well-defined top-level policy. The Quality Policy is so fundamental that communicating it should be easy. Equally, everyone through the organization must understand the importance of the policy because it should guide everyone in their work. Everyone should also understand from the top-level policy the importance of his or her personal contribution to the organisations achievements and success.

SO WHAT IS AN ISO “QUALITY POLICY”?

A Quality Policy is a brief that identifies your organisation’s purpose and direction. It makes statements about your commitment to quality products and/or services. The Policy sets a framework for making a commitment to continual improvement. It also sets out your quality objectives – goals for the value of products, services and processes for the organisation and the different sections with it. Finally, it includes a commitment to meet the requirements of applicable management standards that you work with. It may include, for example, the management commitment to a management system, your customer’s specifications/requirements; applicable regulatory controls and statutory requirements.

Of course, you can include more in your quality policy too. Some Quality organisations have clearly stated “Mission Statement” that goes beyond the Quality Management System itself. Such organisations will include these wider scope statements because they want the staff, customers, public and investors to know what their organization’s vision and core values represent. Such statements seek to show organisational attitudes of caring, charity, sustainable working or pursuing other goals beyond the basic business purpose.

Getting the message of the Quality Policy out to the staff can be simple. In the first instance, it means documenting the Quality Policy often within the Quality Manual. Beyond that, communicating Quality Policy to employees can happen through training sessions, posting printed copies in work areas and using the policy as a review checklist in  planning and operational meetings.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

The top management is responsible for developing, documenting, and establishing the Quality Policy. They are also responsible for communicating the policy in clear terms to everyone in the organisation. That means that Management must drive initiatives to ensure understanding of the meaning of the policy as well as training staff how to work with it. An effective Quality Policy aims to achieve continual improvement, lowering risks and capitalising on opportunities. The idea of continual improvement is a fundamental and critical kernel within the policy. So, staff training should focus carefully on the policy. Everyone must understand that they are contributing not only to the work processes, but also to long term quality improvements and ongoing success of the business.

Quality Policy reaches beyond the organisation too. Businesses normally work together in a supply chain, or within communities where they have an impact beyond the business itself. Quality Policy, Mission Statements and core values often reflect a wider scope for the business in local, national and global business and public communities. Therefore, these statements should be proudly made available to relevant interested parties.

AN EXAMPLE

Simplicity and clarity are watchwords for a Quality Policy. Simple documentation is always central to good communication of ideas. The policy needs to have the force of clear understanding behind it so everyone can understand their shared commitment and also articulate it to others in the organisation. A Quality Policy may, therefore, look like this example…

AS XYZ COMPANY WE WILL,

• Continuously and consistently, make products and provide services to meet or exceed the specifications, requirements and expectations of our customers.
• Rigorously pursue quality improvements throughout the organisation in work processes, production, service standards and management control.
• Set out and pursue Quality Objectives to ensure that all departments and levels of the organisation have clear success and improvement criteria.
• Provide programs and training to enable every employee to do their job right the first time and every time and empower them to feedback and enable quality improvements.
• Actively seek opportunities to develop, extend and improve our quality system to ensure that the Quality Policy is implemented in all aspects of the organisations work and improvement.

To be consistent with the rest of the Quality Management System, the Quality Policy should be subject to regular review (through the Management Review Process). Additionally, the Quality Policy documentation should be properly controlled through the Document Control Procedure. As the fundamental driving force for strategic policy in the organisation, the Quality Policy requires careful control, due respect and care.

DELIVERING AGAINST CLEAR OBJECTIVES

The statements in your top-level policy are, necessarily, of a wide scope. So, to make them measurable the organisation needs to recognise exciting, but achievable goals which define success. Measurable steps towards achieving your Quality Policy are an important part of your strategy for improvement across the whole organisation.

These Quality Objectives are fundamental to the design of your Quality Management System. As with any other part of the System the Quality Policies are subject to the Management Review process. To be successful in implementing your Quality Policy your Management Reviews examine how you are going to meet the Quality Objectives, and the steps needed to address any shortfall.

The perfect system is impossible. So, in designing your Quality Objectives there should always be acceptable tolerances defined and measured within your system. Be practical about this. Instead of saying, “we will be on time 100% of the time”, state an acceptable percentage of on-time deliveries. Another example might be to work to an acceptable percentage level of waste in the production process. Maybe, at high production rates you need to accept a low percentage rate of defects, say, 0.7% – or whatever is appropriate to your business. You should be certain however, that these tolerances are understandable, timely, robust and appropriate. They should also be challenging to ensure continual improvement through your Quality Objectives.

THE IMPACT OF THE QUALITY POLICY

All action taken throughout the organisation is both a business process and road map to a quality product or service if the Quality Policy guides everyone. Focus, commitment and understanding of what the Quality Policy means helps keep everyone on target and working toward the improvement of the organisation and greater customer satisfaction.

At CHARTER4 we have provided support to numerous companies implementing ISO Standards. While we aim to help you to efficiently achieve your desired certification we also have another goal. We focus our methods on the basis that we also want you to get a real business benefit from your ISO journey. In other words,  we want you to, “Improve your business, rather than just comply” to a standard. We go the extra mile to ensure you get a real business return on your ISO investment.

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