
However, if you are more specialized in what you do, where time to deliver is not as important, this may not be a Key Performance Indicator for you. If you are a high production environment where you need to deliver on time, then measuring the elapsed time to create your product or service might be the best measure for you to use.

To do this you need to know which are the most important elements of your QMS processes. This is completely up to you, but you need to ask yourself: “What do I need to measure to know that my QMS processes are performing as expected and that they are effective?” The term Key Performance Indicator refers to these measurements that you have chosen to use. So, what ISO 9001:2015 requires is that your company determines what it needs to monitor and measure to determine the performance and effectiveness of the QMS, how and when to do the monitoring and measuring, and analyze and evaluate the results. What does Key Performance Indicator mean? The requirements throughout this section highlight the importance of monitoring, measuring, analyzing, and evaluating the QMS, including the use of the important processes of internal audit and management review for this purpose.įor more on what ISO 9001:2015 requires for performance evaluation, see this article on How to implement the Check phase (performance evaluation) in the QMS according to ISO 9001:2015.

This is most prevalent in section 9 on performance evaluation. Throughout the ISO 9001 standard there are requirements for reporting on the performance of the QMS, determining competence that affects the performance of the QMS, and evaluating the performance and effectiveness of the QMS. In fact, the only time the term performance indicators is used is in section 4.4.1 where there is a discussion of the processes of the QMS and that the organization needs to determine the criteria and methods needed to ensure effective operation and control, including related performance indicators. ISO 9001 talks a lot about evaluating performance even though it never uses the full term Key Performance Indicator.

So, you are probably wondering what ISO 9001 actually says and what the term Key Performance Indicator actually means. This term is commonly used, and has been for many years, even though ISO 9001:2015 doesn’t actually use this term. Even if you have only started to implement a Quality Management System (QMS), you will very likely have heard about Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) within the management system.
