KPIs and the process approach

“By utilizing the KPIs that the company has identified as the important indicators that the processes are functioning well the overall QMS objectives for improvement become much easier to measure.”

Answer
Let us consider the whole article How to Write Good Quality Objectives- https://advisera.com/9001academy/knowledgebase/how-to-write-good-quality-objectives/ before that phrase.

For example, a company wins business by being the lower bidder in public contracts. So, its Quality Policy assumes that efficiency is a top priority. Efficiency is translated into an overall QMS objective called “Improve productivity”.

An organization can be seen as a set of processes:

Meeting a particular QMS objective will be a function of one or more processes. For example:

https://www.screencast.com/users/ccruz5284/f olders/Default/media/8ace04c4-264f-4105-b8bb-65734f8774d2

In this organization, processes “4.Prepare production” and “6.Maintain equipment” are considered the two most relevant to “Improve productivity”.
Now, the organization can consider several ways of monitoring processes 4 and 6 performance. For example, measures for process 6 can be:
* Maintenance costs
* Mean time between failure of critical equipment
* Lost production time

All measures are relevant and have their reason, but the organization decides that “Lost production time” is a KPI because it is a good proxy for improved productivity. This is an example of “(e.g. one objective for the whole QMS, then individual objectives for the product or process that supports the overall objective).”

Now, back to your question. The overall QMS objective is, sometimes, very abstract and the final result of a long chain of cause-effect. With KPI’s an organization can monitor in real time measures that will affect the overall QMS objective that will only be measurable much later.

The following material will provide you more information about the process approach:
- Free webinar – The Process Approach - What it is, why it is important, and how to do it - https://advisera.com/9001academy/webinar/iso-9001-process-approach-free-webinar-on-demand/
- free online training ISO 9001:2015 Foundations Course – https://advisera.com/training/iso-9001-foundations-course/
- book – Discover ISO 9001:2015 Through Practical Examples – https://advisera.com/books/discover-iso-9001-2015-through-practical-examples/