Almost all in-depth interview participants confirmed that quality plays a key role in an organization’s overall strategic and business objectives and quality’s role continues to expand, driven by consumer safety considerations. A few felt their current role should be bigger, although their organizations are moving in the right direction, giving quality “a seat at the table.” Quality is becoming more fully integrated with other departments and garnering the same level of importance.
“Quality is pervasive within the company… Quality in the sense of ‘how does the consumer see it?’ is what really matters… We like to have high value products for consumers, and quality is a key part of making that happen… We’re right there next to the manufacturing and engineering and research and development with an equal partnership at the table.”
– Consumer Goods, Quality Assurance
“We feel like we produce the best chemical line in the entire industry… Quality has a seat at the table, and what I mean by that is: it’s just as important as funding, it’s just as important as inventory… It’s paramount.”
– Chemicals, Quality Control
“Quality is a license to operate. Without us, it doesn’t exist.”
We are continuing to work to increase the relative importance of quality and quality management across the corporation. We've made important strides in the last five to ten years, especially in quality management, as contrasted with product quality. This means utilizing and better approaching quality management to ensure not only product quality but process efficiencies to be faster, support innovation, etc. At Thanksgiving, you have the kids' table and you have the parents' table. We used to be in the kids' table, and now we have the seat at the parents' table. The question is ‘do we also have the voice?’ It's a work in progress.
– Consumer Goods, Quality Management
Most survey respondents have a role in both quality and EHS. Having a dual quality and EHS role is most common among food & beverage companies (81%), followed by consumer goods companies (76%), followed by chemical companies (63%). Typically, quality and EHS solutions are separate tools that work together, but professionals would prefer they were both in a single solution.
What is your role in ensuring quality at your company? What is your role in ensuring environmental health and safety (EHS) at your company? Base: Total (n=260) How are the EHS and quality solutions/tools you use integrated? Q40. What are your preferences for integrated EHS and quality solutions? Base: Use EHS Solutions/Tools (n=179)
KEY TAKEAWAY:
Quality and EHS are converging. Most quality professionals also have an EHS role and therefore want a single software solution that handles both quality and EHS.
Quality management maturity means using tools globally across the organization, but it also means shared data that provides a single source of truth, automated processes, common workflows, transparency, accountability, and a systematic way to identify and exploit opportunities. Thus, whether and how a company uses a QMS is not the sole determinant of how a quality professional rates their maturity.
“For us, organizational quality management maturity means ‘Automation of Quality Processes.’ Getting to the next level of maturity would be defined as ‘Automatic Quality.’”
– Consumer Goods, Quality Assurance– Consumer Goods, Quality Assurance
We have a mixture of old local systems. Depending on the site, part of it or all of it may be under the global system. My first role is to harmonize for all sites and all processes.
– Specialty Chemicals, Quality Management
Maturation will continue. There is room for many companies to mature further and most quality professionals expect they will do so. For example, companies are making solutions and processes consistent throughout the organization, enhancing transparency across the supply chain, and automating processes to reduce human error.
Quality Management Maturity
Fully Mature. Common global cloud eQMS across all sites. Decentralized processes. Work completed across HQ, regional sites, affiliate sites. Processes defined & driven through system workflows, automated where possible. Established KPIs. Reliable data quality and metrics.
Reaching Maturity. Common eQMS across most/all products. HQ/regional control of quality processes.
Work or data requests delegated to affiliates. Basic workflows drive processes, document control, training.
Starting to Mature. Processes via email and spreadsheets. Information in local shared drives. Duplicate quality data exists. Siloed systems.
Immature. Manual processes via email and spreadsheets. Records and documents not well controlled.
Which best describes the maturity of quality management in your organization? What do you expect the maturity of quality management in your organization will be a year from now? Base: Total (n=260)
Becoming more mature makes quality management more efficient – i.e., the organization can do more with less – and more effective – i.e., quality is higher. These factors directly lead to return on investment in quality maturity. Furthermore, quality maturity provides transparency and accountability up and down the supply chain. Customer requirements of transparency and accountability are increasingly non-negotiable.
We are in the process of arguing for and procuring a QMS. There is a push to do this now due to customer obligations, which have become more and more intricate over the years. Customers are pushing their liabilities down through the supply chain. They want greater and greater transparency and accountability and say our current systems are inadequate. We're still doing risk assessments in spreadsheets. Our customers are saying that's no longer a viable option. Customers recognize that if you don't tie the risk assessments to your management system and your task flow work processes, then you’re missing opportunities to improve processes and reduce risk. This is a huge challenge for us, and with our antiquated systems, it's just becoming impossible to keep up.
– Specialty Chemicals, QHSE
3rd party cloud software is the most commonly used tool to manage quality. In addition to 3rd party cloud software, companies continue to use processes that rely on spreadsheets, shared drives, documents and email. Many use a combination of tools as they move toward a unified approach across the organization. QMS is in the mix of modes of communication companies use.
What software tools do you use to manage quality processes, documents, and training? Select all that apply. Base: Total (n=260) How does your company collaborate and communicate across teams, sites, and suppliers? Select all that apply. Base: Total (n=260)
77%
3rd party cloud-based software tools
71%
Combination of spreadsheets, shared drive, word documents and email
53%
Custom-built in-house software tool
19%
3rd party on-premise software tools
82%
Email
78%
Phone, tele-/video-conference
73%
Cloud QMS
70%
Digital collaboration tools
50%
Hard copy documents
46%
On premise QMS
Fax
Companies use software tools for a range of quality management and EHS processes. The most common uses are supplier management and specification management, followed by customer complaints management and risk management & RCA. Uses are by no means mutually exclusive, as companies use software for multiple processes.
What quality management / EHS processes are you using software tools for today? Select all that apply. Base: Use 3rd Party Cloud Based Software Tools (n=199)
Almost all in-depth interview participants report QMS benefits from:
"We are trying to reinvent or improve our quality processes in order to drive efficiency. Supplier validation is one [benefit], but there are plenty others. If we manage deviation faster, if we manage change control more efficiently... all of this is driving speed, and speed is money.”
“We’re hoping to... better [understand] what drives the risk of producing something that causes a marketplace incident. Because amongst all the things that quality is driving, a marketplace incident - which in the worst case can result into a recall - are probably one of the most disruptive and most costly events that can occur.”
