The Output
The number/percentage (if the metric is quantitative) or other result (if the metric is
qualitative) forms the output of the ‘process’. The results form an indication to which
an organisation achieved its goals. However, an organisation is as successful as its
customers perceive it to be and the degree to which the marketplace i.e. competition
‘allows’ it to be. Increased competition in the 1990s forced companies to review what
they use to view as ‘acceptable’ performance measures. In the example presented in
the previous section it can be seen that the result of measuring the amount of defects
out of 1000 components provided is 2%. This means that twenty parts are faulty. This
might have been acceptable in the 1970s but a large number of Japanese companies
are demanding and in many cases achieving the same percentage out of a million
parts.