doelwaarde

Doelwaarde is a Dutch term that translates to target value or goal value. It denotes the desired or planned value for a quantity at a given moment, used as a reference against which actual measurements are compared or evaluated. The concept is common across Dutch-speaking disciplines such as engineering, quality management, statistics, finance, education and policy making, where clear targets help steer decisions and assess performance.

In practice, doelwaarde functions as a reference point. In process control or automation, it is often equivalent to a setpoint—the value a control system aims to maintain. In statistics and data analysis, the doelwaarde represents the value that a parameter is intended to reach or the benchmark used in hypothesis testing or estimation. In project management and KPIs, it expresses the target outcome for a metric, such as revenue growth or cycle time.

Measuring against the doelwaarde enables variance analysis: the difference between actual results and the target value shows performance gaps, while proximity to the doelwaarde indicates target achievement. Doelwaarde should be realistic, based on planning and prior data, and may be adjusted as conditions change.

Note that the term is primarily used in Dutch-language contexts. In English, comparable terms include setpoint, target value, goal, or benchmark, depending on the application.