How Cloud-based QMS can Help Companies in Times of Recession

For seasoned business leaders, recessionary and booming economic phases have become part-and-parcel of their business lives! Decision-makers who have been around since the dot-com crash of 2001 and the subsequent 2008 financial crisis, have figured out ways to survive dips in the business cycle. Often, they have used these challenging times to pursue transformative ideas that will serve them well during the next boom!

Of course, during a recession, there is a slump in economic activity, leading to lower demand, lower production, incomes, and lower employment opportunities.

Though it is normal for the boom and recession cycles to follow each other, businesses need to find ways to survive the slump by optimizing resources, minimizing costs, and increasing operational efficiency. They must be able to retain customers, enhance their brand reputation, and minimize wastage to sustain profitability.

From a quality leader perspective, it is absolutely the right time to digitally transform the organization’s QMS processes and workflows.

A cloud-based enterprise-wide quality management system (QMS) becomes crucial in achieving these goals as it provides end-to-end visibility, improves productivity, and lowers costs.The 5 key ways in which a next-generation EQMS helps an organization meet the challenges of a recession include –

#1 – Data-Driven Insights for Improved Decision-making

An end-to-end quality management system that integrates with other enterprise systems such as the ERP, SCM, CRM, etc. provides a unified view of data from across functions and multiple sources. This helps decision-makers draw insights and improve the quality of decisions to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the processes. It helps track metrics and minimize errors to proactively mitigate any potential quality risks.

Huhtamaki is a Finland-based global food packaging company that manufactures paper and plastic disposable tableware for quick-serve and fast-casual restaurants. The company has operations in 35 countries, and 81 sites worldwide with over 19,000 employees.

The company was processing data manually and found it challenging to draw insights in a timely manner. The company opted for ComplianceQuest’s EQMS and started by implementing the document management module. This enabled it to access data quickly and respond to customer queries fast, thereby improving customer satisfaction. It also helped with internal improvements by identifying gaps at the site level.

#2 – Reduce Cost of Quality (CoQ)

Cost of Quality (CoQ) is really the cost of poor quality. When products and processes do not meet specifications or standard operating procedures, respectively, they lead to wastage, scrap, recalls, and other similar problems. These add to the cost of production, affect customer perception, and are a drain on resources.

An EQMS helps overcome this by reducing nonconformance, taking timely and meaningful action to correct errors, and preventing future recurrence by enabling root cause analysis. It helps with risk and change management, thereby allowing control measures to be put in place and minimizing business disruptions.

#3 – Improve Operational Efficiency

Ocean Insight is an optic technology company that leverages the power of light to deliver optical sensing technologies. The company has offices in the Americas, Europe, and Asia, and are a part of Halma plc, a global group of life-saving technology companies.

The nonconformance (NC) that resulted from manual systems had been negatively impacting their bottom line. The company used ComplianceQuest EQMS for real-time uploading of the product specs, documents, work instructions, and SOPs are updated in real-time, improving operational efficiency. From six to eight weeks, approvals are now completed in minutes from anywhere in the world – thanks to CQ!

Further, customer returns decreased from 3% to .3%. There was a reduction in scrap, leading to a cost savings of around $400,000 annually, and the defect rates dropped from 8% to 1% or less.

#4 – Supplier Quality Management

The input quality has a direct impact on the final output. Managing supplier quality is important to minimize nonconformance and reduce product defects. An EQMS ensures this by enabling inspection management, measuring supplier performance, and ensuring that the materials supplied conform to the specifications.

It also facilitates improved exchange of documents for change and risk management. Any change in design or specification should be communicated to the supplier to ensure the right inputs are shared with the supplier, making document exchange critical to quality and efficiency. It also helps with supplier onboarding, training, and reboarding as required. It can help capture trends of supplier performance and maintain a list of alternative suppliers in case the current one is not available. This also brings down costs of production and improves profitability.

#5 – Facilitating Collaboration

SPR Therapeutics, a Cleveland, Ohio, based company founded in 2010 designs, manufactures and commercializes non-opioid, minimally invasive pain treatment options. The company’s SPRINT technology is the only percutaneous Peripheral Nerve Stimulation (PNS) System approved by the FDA to treat both chronic and acute pain.

The company drafted an aggressive growth plan but its existing technology proved to be an obstacle. It was using an assortment of separate, unintegrated applications, which led to disconnected silos of information and frustrating inefficiencies.

To move away from disconnected silos of information and to improve interactions with suppliers, production, quality management, and customers, it company wanted a single integrated solution to support growth and improve efficiency.

By implementing ComplianceQuest EQMS, it was able to unify processes and improve transparency. This facilitated collaboration and communication between the teams by connecting its staff, scattered across the US, and set the company on the path to success. With its scalability, flexibility, and real-time anytime/anywhere access, the cloud was the right platform for the company to improve collaboration.

To know more about the ComplianceQuest EQMS and how it can help deal with the recession, click here: https://www.compliancequest.com/quality/