The Problems...

Most compliance standards have a requirement for organisations to continuously seek improvement. Planning for future improvement implies knowledge of the current situation. Indeed, standards such as ISO 9001 have clauses that explicitly require monitoring and measurement of product and processes.

Therefore, a key component of any compliance management system should be to measure performance against relevant criteria - to guide preventive, corrective and improvement actions, and prioritise resources where they may be of greatest benefit.

Performance measurement or assessment might include:

• Internal or external benchmark exercises
• Supplier assessments
• Customer surveys
• Employee surveys

So how well is this key business management activity performed?

In many cases, the performance of many things that affect an organisation's overall success are not assessed at all, or they are not assessed adequately. Often, assessments are done, but they remain as lonely, deserted lonely islands of information - never to be integrated with actions that address the issues raised.

The Solution...

The Benchmark module in Qudos 3 enables you to record a range of performance measurements based on any aspect of your organisation's processes and relationships. These records are maintained in one searchable database, with links to documents to communicate your business rules, and integrated action plans to address any identified shortcomings or possible improvements.

The Benchmark module may be used for score-based assessments of the relative performance of products, services, suppliers, or business units. Its uses are limited only by your imagination!

Each Assessment may be categorised according to its subject matter, and a Master Assessment may be created in each user-defined category. This saves time in data entry - while enabling the desired level of consistency in approach.

The assessor gives each item a Value - which may be multiplied with an optional Weighting (for importance). The software automatically calculates Item Scores, Total and Average. Up to 100 separately tracked Action plans may be generated for each assessed item.

All results in a category can be viewed and compared with the Summary Report. In no time at all, your organisation can easily be measuring and analysing its key performance indicators!

Screen shot extract from a Benchmark Summary Report

A Sample Procedure for performance measurement is included. This may be customized to communicate your business rules and guidance.