One company owner I worked with took a while to understand what ISO9001:2000 is all about. At one point he wanted to include quality objectives that were not measurable. They were subjective evaluations.
He asked me if every objective needed to be measurable. Couldn’t they just have as an objective something to the effect of “better quality”, or “more satisfied customers”? The short answer is “no”. I suspect that while he was excited about getting the nice certificate on the wall, he wasn’t too keen on actually following the requirements if ISO9001:2000.
ISO9001:2000 is all about continual improvement. In order to steer a ship you need to know where you are, and where you want to go. It’s the same with a quality management system. Without concrete numbers, its difficult to know where you are, and how you are progressing.