A Quality Management System or QMS describes a methodology that documents processes, procedures, and responsibilities aimed at achieving, maintaining, and surpassing quality and performance standards and objectives within an organisation.
A QMS will define:
how quality is measured through monitoring and recording data related to productivity and performance.
how that data should be monitored, assessed, and managed.
The scope of a QMS can address both environmental and operational functions within a company:
Health and safety, regulatory compliance, and the quality of the workplace environment for employees and customers alike can all be supported, better controlled, and enhanced by adopting a QMS strategy.
Whether delivering services, trading products, or manufacturing and selling them, an effective QMS will help you consistently meet customer expectations, and potentially exceed them through managed efficiency and continuous improvement.
A QMS can still be a paper-based operation, recording data, interpreting it, and taking management action to improve overall performance and efficiency. However, considering the potentially huge amount of data involved, the breadth of business functions and efficiencies that a QMS can influence, and the readily available digital technology, a computerised QMS represents the only way to go in the 21st century.
Consider the following:
Reducing material and packaging waste: A digital QMS will capture production data and prevent the over or under-use of materials as they are consumed in real-time, for any given production volume.
Preventing mistakes: not only can you then eradicate waste, giveaway, and unnecessary rework, but you can virtually guarantee operational accuracy, for example, ensuring adherence to production specifications, eliminating shorts and overs, and always delivering the highest quality service levels.
Lowering costs: eliminating waste and improving production accuracy are obvious ways to reduce costs, but a computerised QMS can provide management with instant visibility and analysis of performance data across all operational processes, so decision-making to further improve efficiency is always based on the complete, up-to-the-minute picture.
Facilitating and identifying training opportunities: At the heart of a QMS system is a database that can provide management with its ideal views of performance over time. Analysis will inform where operational weaknesses can be found, so that processes can be enhanced, and training can be supported universally.
Engaging staff: digital technology can ensure operators always have access to detailed instructions, images, and helpful documentation to make their everyday tasks clear and interesting. Touch screen technology is an integral part of a modern QMS, it is quicker and more intuitive to use than paper-based controls, but it can also importantly be presented in the operator's own language.
Meeting customer expectations: A QMS can help you ensure that the products and services provided for your customers are demonstrably compliant with health and safety standards, industry-specific regulations (food safety for example), whilst being sustainably produced. Ally this with consistently high-quality products delivered via accurate and efficient operational processes, then you have the recipe for long-term commercial success. Happy customers keep coming back, and they tend to buy more.
Evidencing compliance: saying you are compliant is one thing, but for some industries it is vital to be able to demonstrate compliance at a granular level. When things do not go as planned, an important component of a digital QMS is a corrective and preventive action process (CAPA), which will automatically trigger when results are recorded that fall outside your QMS quality standard tolerances. This allows quality deficits to be immediately identified, addressed, and ultimately prevented.
In business, continuous improvement is essential if you want to keep moving forward, stay competitive, and grow. A QMS can be structured to provide focus on ways to improve quality and performance on an ongoing basis, but only a computerised QMS can comprehensively and efficiently help streamline processes and automate quality management.
It can be deployed to interpret and consistently deliver control against your business’s mission and direction through continuously monitored processes. The QMS allows you to set and maintain quality standards. Then, through the power of immediate database analysis, and the visibility afforded to management, you can identify opportunities to streamline each operation and plot your path towards continuous improvement.
Implementing a digital QMS can also help to enhance collaboration and communication throughout the business. The technology can improve the flow of valuable information concerning shared corporate goals and objectives between departments as they perform each required operational function or process.
VisionQMS is a digital quality management system that utilises the latest technologies to deliver a uniquely flexible and powerful application, suitable for any business looking to get maximum value from its data by replacing paper-based or unintelligent forms-based data collection. Book a demo today to learn how VisionQMS could transform your business.