eqms, qms, quality, quality management

Customer satisfaction, more often than not, begins with effective management. However, it is not as easy as it sounds. Although there are various tools and methods aimed at quality management and improvement, only a handful of them have proven to be substantially effectual. To understand how, here are two case studies on companies in various industries that have successfully implemented QMS into their systems and optimized it.

HFI

HFI is a Columbus, Ohio-based automotive interior supplier, committed to a value-driven business climate and high-quality products. Before implementing QMS, they relied on separate individually ran quality management systems that significantly hindered connectivity and productivity, especially after they began expanding and assimilating more facilities into their company. Because of this:

  • Production slowed due to connectivity problems.
  • Human resources were ineffectively distributed across all the departments and production areas.
  • Corruption became an imminent system risk.
  • Specialized knowledge was required to operate even some of the most basic databases.
  • Human participation was required even when processing and completing electronic approvals.
  • Documents became hard to locate, process, and share.

After operating their fourth facility began, it was critical to leverage an effective system that would not only boost efficiency, but also facilitate progressive company growth. So they turned to QAD for help, and consequently adopted a more effective system that:

  • Was configured according to their respective goals and needs.
  • Was structured according to phases that began with small, controlled groups before ultimately breaking out to other production elements.
  • Was designed to address the hesitation, confusion, and concerns among employees, especially in regards to big transitions.
  • Was integrated into their regular operations to standardize all company departments and levels.

By turning to quality management software from QAD, HFI was able to boost productivity and launch three more facilities in a span of just two years- subsequently doubling their number of new projects on an annual basis. Since then, their new quality management system has provided them with:

  • A structured system for launching new facilities more efficiently.
  • Effectual systems that collectively operate to boost efficiency and quality.
  • Smooth operations that significantly improve customer satisfaction.
  • Increased visibility and access to all the processes within the company.
  • Improved utilization of human resources.

Vishay Dale Inc.

Vishay Dale Incorporated is a world renowned manufacturer of electronic, engineering, and tech components, most of which were initially only supplied to military and government industries. Currently, they serve a broad range of industries, including solar power systems, automobiles, tablets, and smartphones.

Even though they are an established company, Vishay still experienced many challenges, which included:

  • The risk of misplacing, changing, damaging, or losing critical internal documents.
  • Lack of sufficient resources and manpower to seamlessly execute a quality management system that would facilitate a TQM resource for automotive customers.
  • Delays in implementation and completion of approvals and changes.
  • Difficulties in auditing and storing their paper documents.

To mitigate these issues, the company knew that it had to leverage a solution that would seamlessly facilitate quick, accurate changes within the company without compromising on their leadership position in the automotive industry. They eventually settled on a QMS solution from QAD, which was able to help them:

  • Get rid of paper-based systems, consequently granting them additional space for productivity.
  • Streamline auditing operations through straightforward click searches that provide relevant document information.
  • Create a system that significantly minimized time and efforts required to approve and execute engineering changes.
  • Increased process speeds by improving data handling.
  • Develop more than 500,000 entries linking all related documents, to ease the search-and-locate process.
  • Transfer more than 65,000 documents.

In addition to dramatically improving their audit and change operations, Vishay has grown to become a lead supplier for the automotive industry. Thanks to their growth-tweaked quality management system software, they can now enjoy:

  • Approval processes that don’t require restarts in case faults discovered by the lead engineer.
  • Changes that can be swiftly and easily executed.
  • Revisions that are made quickly and accurately.
  • Approvals or rejections made and delivered in real time.
  • A system that can autonomously operate.
  • A minimal volume of paper documents.

Other companies have been able to achieve similar results. With such visible results, it can be confirmed that Quality Management Systems are not just a tool optimized for quality improvement, but one that also boosts overall efficiency and growth.

Dominic Tramontana has over 20 years of leadership experience in manufacturing software and technology and is an expert in the management, design and development of quality management systems. He joined QAD in 2012 as Development and Customer Support Manager, moved to Director of Technology and then into his current role as Director of R&D for the EQMS solution in 2018. As a member of the strategic planning team, Tramontana designs solutions for global organizations in Automotive, Industrial, High Tech, Food and Beverage, Consumer Products, and Life Sciences, helping manufacturers reduce their cost of quality and improve margins and profitability. He is an evangelist for quality and is driven to build a quality culture within every organization by having quality designed from the start, disciplined use of improvement tools, awareness of quality’s financial impact, full ownership of quality by everyone in the organization and the use of cross-functional teams. Tramontana has a Bachelor of Science in Business and Information Systems from the University of Phoenix.

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