Ensuring Quality Excellence: A Guide to Monitoring, Measurement, and Customer Insights for ISO Compliance

Planning Your monitoring and measuring activities

This clause addresses the wider monitoring, measurement, analysis and improvement of the performance of the quality management stem. You need to plan how you intend to carry out the monitoring and measuring activities that you are going to use.

2-person manufacturer of jams, jellies and associated preserves established monitoring and measurement at the following stages in the system:

• Visual inspection of incoming raw fruit for spoilage, disease, etc.
• Weighing of fruit and recording the mass introduced into the manufacturing process.
• Visual inspection of fruit after peeling, where applicable, for defects which may not have been previously visible.
• Monitoring the condition of the fruit as during heating to ensure that it is not over- or under-cooked (checking the texture, color, aroma and other characteristics of the fruit based on experience and skill)
• Measuring and recording the quantity of sugar and other ingredients added to the batch of fruit being heated
• Visual monitoring of fill levels in jars as an indicator of mass for the specific product being transferred
• Checking the mass of the finished product to ensure that it complies with the legal tolerance for the printed mass of the jar of jam or similar product
• Visual checks on the number of jars packed per case of product

A 6-person Inspection company which, does visual inspection on the structure of Cargo Carrying Units (including wire ropes) for the oil & gas sector has identified the following methods:

• Monitoring of technical competence for inspectors is periodically done by the Team Leader or a subcontracted expert
• Inspectors use a calibrated light meter to measure the level of illumination to determine whether there is adequate ambient illumination is available, or whether additional light is needed to carry out the inspections
• Analysis of the number of inspections carried out by inspectors each month is done to determine whether customer requirements relating to the volume of inspections are being met
• Evaluation of the degree of kink in the wire rope by comparison with a template with a known angle at the vertex

A regulatory inspection agency has determined based on its experience that monitoring of imported electrical items from a new supplier shall be done for the first batch, and for every batch thereafter for the next year. Subsequently monitoring shall be relaxed to once every three months if there are no nonconforming electrical items detected. If nonconformities are detected then monitoring shall be done on a per shipment basis for another calendar year.

A printing company using an offset process has determined based on its experience that measurement of the print dimensions for full-color A3 posters shall be done on one out of every one hundred-(1% inspection) prints.

A shipping agency of 15 employees has monitoring of its quality of service measured by a 1-page survey at the end of every port visit by the captain of the vessel.

A shipping agency of 15 employees has established the following frequencies for analysis and evaluation of customer satisfaction:

• Analysis of customer satisfaction is done by administrative staff when the survey records are returned by the person assigned direct responsibility for the vessel
• Evaluation of the customer satisfaction levels against the company-level quality objective is done on a quarterly basis

A construction company which does excavation, supply and compaction of structural fill material, and provides load-bearing concrete applies the following methods to ensure implementation of monitoring and measurement activities:

• Supervisors are provided with the approved Inspection and Test plans for the job
• The Quality Control person assigned to the job ensures that inspection of stage completion is done prior to the job being allowed to progress to the next stage, e.g., the depth of excavation is verified based on reports from the civil surveyors before approved structural fill is allowed to be placed into the excavated hole
• As the pouring of load-bearing concrete is a process requiring validation (a “special process”), the Quality Control personnel ensure the following records are retained:
• The design mix and actual quantities for the concrete from the batching plant
• Certificates of analysis for the raw materials (cement, water, sand, gravel, etc.) used in preparing the batch of concrete
• Approved procedures for the mixing and delivery (pouring) of concrete
• Competence records for the batch plant operator and the concrete pour operator
• Certification for the batch plant and the concrete pour equipment (e.g., the concrete mixer and pump)
• Records of the characteristics of the concrete at the time of the pour (e.g., a Pour Card) such as slump test result, temperature, water added and quantity of water added.

A supplier of technical services to the oil and gas sector reviews the performance of parts of its QMS on a monthly basis at management meetings. The overall effectiveness of the QMS is evaluated twice a year.

A regulatory agency evaluates quality performance through the use of a “Balanced Scorecard approach on a quarterly basis, and the overall effectiveness of the QMS is evaluated once a year.