Business Objectives and Planning to Achieve Them

An effectively implemented management system aligns the policy with strategic and management system objectives and provides the framework upon which to translate these objectives into functional targets.

Establish and maintain documented quality objectives and targets at each relevant function and level within the organisation. The objectives and targets establish an important link between the policies and the management programmes. The objectives and targets must be consistent with the policies, including the commitment to, for example in the case of ISO 14001, prevention of pollution and continual improvement.

Depending on the size, management structure, and other factors pertaining to your organisation, the objectives may be established and reviewed by various personnel and with direct Top Management input.

Your organisation will need to set their environmental, quality and health & safety objectives for relevant functions, levels and processes within the management system. It is for your organisation to decide which functions, levels and processes are relevant.

You should also use indicators to monitor the achievement of objectives. Indicators should have a measurable representation of the status of operations, management or conditions. Each objective should have one or more associated indicators.

Objectives can apply to an entire organisation, can be site-specific, or can be specific to individual activities. The appropriate level(s) of management personnel should define the objectives and targets.

In some cases, personnel who set objectives may not be the same as those who set targets. Remember that the objectives are the overall goals as reflected in the principles established in the policy.

The scope and number of the objectives and targets must be realistic and achievable. Otherwise, the success and continued commitment from Top Management and employees will diminish. Consider the factors below, as you begin to formulate your objectives:

• Compliance obligations;
• Significant aspects (aspects directly related to significant impacts);
• Significant hazards (hazards directly related to risks);
• Financial, operational, and business requirements;
• Views of interested parties.

Targets must be quantified where practicable and the units that are used to quantify the targets are referred to as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). A KPI is defined as an expression that is used to provide information about management system performance. The following are some examples of KPIs:

• The quantity of raw material or energy used;
• The amount of waste produced;
• The number of incidents;
• The number of accidents;
• The percentage of waste recycled;
• Investment in environmental protection.

Carefully consider the type of KPI you choose to use. Suppose your organisation establishes a target to reduce its non-hazardous waste by 40% and the KPI you choose is the total tonnage of waste produced each year (tonnes/year).

If your organisation triples its production of units and reduces the amount of waste by 50% per product unit, the KPI (tonnes per year) does not show the reduction.

In this case, the better KPI would have been the weight amount of waste per product unit (kg per unit). In many cases, measuring against the production units proves to be more accurate. The following is an example of an objective with a specific target and an environmental performance indicator:

• Objective: reduce energy required in manufacturing processes;
• Target: achieve 15% reduction of energy usage by 2021;
• Indicator: quantity of electricity per production unit (kilowatt/unit).

Organisations need to establish and maintain one or more management improvement programmes for achieving their objectives. The management improvement programme is a key element to the success of the management system.

Properly designed and implemented, management programmes should achieve the objectives and, consequently, improve your organisation’s performance. The management programme must:

• Address each objective and target;
• Designate the personnel responsible for achieving targets at each relevant function /level of the organisation;
• Provide an action plan describing how each target will be achieved;
• Establish a timeframe or a schedule for achieving each target.

If you would like to look at how to implement an ISO 9001 quality management system, then simply contact us.

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