Does it Make Sense to Manage Safety and Quality Risk in an Integrated, Unified QHSE?

In our earlier blogs as part of this series on integrated quality and safety management, we focused on the following:

1. Why quality without safety will not work?
2. Why safety and quality leaders must collaborate?
3. Why it makes sense to integrate Safety Management System (SMS) and Quality Management System (QMS) into a single workflow

In this blog, we highlight four more reasons why it is time to adopt a truly integrated EQMS + EHS system.

#1: Predictive Insights & Proactive Solutions from Dashboards

Having a single source of data integrated with CAPA and Root Cause Analysis helps businesses with capturing trends, identifying for persistent or concerning problems, and predicting future events.

This can help devise a master data plan for proactive, insight-driven decision making to prevent safety and quality incidents. By establishing consistent communication and processes across functions and stakeholders, people, process, and technology can work together for continuous improvement and mitigate events that can jeopardize safety and quality.

As it is often repeated, a mishap, hazard or accident happens, because the enterprise did not have a prevention mechanism or a quick corrective action in place. It requires a proactive approach, wherein leaders are constantly looking at data and processes to spot risks. Every time a process improvement happens for the sake of costs, so to speak, it must be followed up with a safety-related risk check.

On the quality front, at ComplianceQuest, we leverage advanced technologies such as Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, and AI capabilities to enable predictive quality and give quality leaders the ability to make data-driven decisions.

Here, we list a few capabilities of the ComplianceQuest product to give you a glimpse of the product’s predictive intelligence.

• Issue triage: Identify the next best action/recommendation
• Create wizard-based helpers: Triage, investigation, root cause analysis, etc.
• Enable process automation based on prescribed rules: Trending and statistical thresholds, nonconformance trends
• Use NLP and AI For complaints triage & risk predictions
• Provide dashboards for several roles: Unlimited access, role specific, departmental, site, regional and corporate level (quality, complaints, and supplier)
• Data-driven reports: Built-in reporting engine, simple to create, and use. Can integrate with third-party data analytics tools such as Qlik, Tableau, Micro strategy, Power BI, etc. through native Salesforce data adapter
• Risk data dashboards: Based on past events and risk management leader’s recommendations, enterprises can pull up key data and metrics to spot upcoming safety risks

#2: Aligning People and Processes

Organizations need a sound safety management practice since studies show the following:

• A significant relationship between safety system practices and accident rates
• It can help predict worker engagement levels
• This, in turn, has an impact on accident rates
• The higher the engagement level, the better the safety and as well as performance outcomes
• To reduce accidents, safety systems must be built for employee engagement, collaboration, training, and upskilling.

By implementing an integrated QHSE system, you enable employees to align with business goals while simultaneously providing them with a safe work environment. It also streamlines processes and improves compliance.

• Through periodic training, the employees are better equipped to understand how they are valued and how they can contribute to the organization’s growth.
• By providing a clear structure for authority and responsibility, you empower them to discharge their duties conscientiously.
• By setting objectives and metrics, you enable them to evaluate and assess their own performance.
• Through document management, employees can become more effective and productive.

Such a workforce that feels valued and trusted has better morale, which automatically boosts performance. Retention is higher, and inducting newcomers into this culture of safety and quality becomes easier too.

#3: ROI from a Cloud-based QHSE

Two aspects come into play when we analyze pricing and return on investment. One, of course, is the cost of automating and digitally transforming your quality and safety processes. It is a no-brainer to adopt a single, unified system simply because it is better in terms of process and operations. The cost of technology does come down.

But the real reason why your enterprise must adopt an integrated QHSE is that it pays for itself. It reduces the risk of penalties and the likelihood of mishaps, not to mention the high cost (financial and brand reputation) of failure of compliance or safety.

There are several advantages of going with a cloud-based QHSE like ComplianceQuest. As a next-generation product, we’re built from the ground up for the cloud, making the platform flexible and scalable.

Here, we highlight a few advantages of going to a cloud-based QHSE built on the Salesforce platform.

1. Advantage SaaS business model: A large percentage of our current clients have moved from an on-premise EQMS or EHS to a real cloud-based product like ours. From an ROI standpoint, the pay-per-user, per-month business model ensures scalability, flexibility, and ease of buy-in from top management.
2. Data on the move: For a quality and safety system to be effective, users must have access to next-generation features. Dashboards, mobile-based access to critical quality and safety data, quality analytics, safety management processes, security features are all key factors even from an ROI perspective. The notional cost of not enabling your users and quality and safety leaders with data on the move can be massive.
3. Quality & safety insights: As cloud-based QHSE systems evolve, we’re going to see more “suggestions” and “insights based on quality analytics,” possibly some of these driven by AI. As a quality leader, having anytime, anywhere access to critical quality and compliance insights can be a game-changer. This coupled with a custom safety dashboard can be a game changer to your quality culture.
4. Costs in proportion to the scale of your business: Last but not least, the most important ROI factor this is true for most SaaS companies - your cost scales as your organization scales. When your user base is small, and the number of modules you need is lesser, you simply pay a lower amount every month.

#4: Catastrophic Effects of Managing Risk across Two Systems

When an enterprise fails to build a culture around safety and quality, shortcuts and unsafe practices creep into the system. The cost of not managing safety risk is often understood only in hindsight.

A unified QHSE can lay the foundation to drive digital transformation, wherein quality and safety are given the same importance at the C-suite and board level.

There are several stories of how a lack of focus on mitigating safety risks has led to significant challenges for organizations. In addition to direct damage to people affected by a mishap, any accident also has an impact on production, the cost of production, employee productivity as well as the reputation of the business. Then there are other costs incurred for emergency response and medical care, insurance premiums, possible penalties to be paid to regulatory agencies, and litigations. On the other hand, putting safety ahead of quality can also lead to stagnation and be detrimental to growth.

The trick is to find the right balance, drive quality excellence, embrace a safety culture, while simultaneously pursuing growth and keeping tabs on risk.

Read this whitepaper to find out more:
https://www.compliancequest.com/whitepaper/harnessing-the-power-of-an-integrated-qhse/