Time and again during my 20 years as a Quality Manager and Senior Auditor I’ve seen the same scenario – businesses struggling with the sheer weight and volume of information that make up a paper-based quality management system (QMS).  Employees feel put upon and bewildered by the endless form-filling and double handling.  Managers are frustrated with the unwieldy bureaucracy that fails to give them the data they need, when they need it.  For some New Zealand companies the QMS experience has been reduced to filling in a few forms, having a couple of half-hearted annual management meetings and anxiously waiting for external audits to roll around.

Of course, this isn’t how it’s supposed to happen.  Companies usually start out on their QMS journey gung-ho, full of motivation and commitment.  They can see that a quality management system is a terrific way to be consistent in their approach to making products or providing services, fixing faults and responding to customer complaints.  They understand that a quality management system can act as a backstop to ensure that their business continues to develop and move forward, rather than endlessly repeat past mistakes.  They appreciate that such systems have the potential to maximize production, generate less waste, increase customer satisfaction and ultimately, of course, produce a healthier bottom line.

But human frailty being what it is, things slide and crises happen.  Folders full of processes gather dust on top of filing cabinets full of hard-to-collate data. Staff leave or become ill and system know-how disappears with them.  Policies and processes are applied inconsistently across multiple or remote worksites.  Before you know it, the costly new system you’ve created isn’t adding any of the anticipated value at all – instead, it has become a significant problem.  It’s turned into another energy-sapping item in a long list of compliance headaches.

Recently however, there has been a convergence of three global trends, resulting in what I believe will be the biggest revolution in quality management systems in 20 years:

• over the past decade the Internet has gone from being a fringe, techy environment to one which is ubiquitous (according to OECD figures, Internet penetration in most households is over 70%),
• the emergence of Web 2.0 technology has transformed the way the Internet is used - tools such as HTML and Ajax mean that web pages can be made more responsive, thus increasing a page’s speed, interactivity and usability,
• easy availability of computer hardware such as Blackberries™, PDAs and laptops have resulted in their increased use by both small and large businesses, at all staffing levels.

The combination of these three trends has resulted in the development of on-line quality management systems.  It’s my belief (and one which the US FDA shares) that on-line systems have the potential to exponentially improve the usefulness and value of quality management systems per se.

So what does an on-line management system look like? 

There are now many such systems in the marketplace, and the best of them share similar features.  Most are accessed through Internet Explorer, which means that staff can access them without having to install software on each individual computer.  Ongoing, recurring events such as internal audits, management reviews, health and safety meetings, calibrations, maintaining records of improvement, corrective action and preventive action are alerted to staff by using automatically generated e-mail reminders and status reports.  Good on-line systems also have easy configuration of forms, checklists and workflows, and are adaptable to a business’s processes, rather than the other way around.  In addition, online management systems provide real time reporting of a business’s health and fitness.

So what are the benefits of on-line management systems?

The escalation of alerts means that ongoing tasks aren’t forgotten or overlooked.  Because the “human frailty factor” is taken out of the mix, staff and management are prevented from wasting time and effort on sweating the small stuff. 

Paper-based systems have many drawbacks - the time and expense of copying various procedures, collation of the paper work, sending out to various locations, circulation of the manuals and advising everyone of the changes. By definition, on-line systems don’t use valuable staff time to create piles of paper, thus compliance costs are significantly reduced.  There has been a lot of talk lately about the huge costs to New Zealand businesses of complying with an increasing burden of regulation and legislation.  Having to keep your eye on the countless rules and regulations takes management focus away from the bigger picture of developing and growing the business.  On-line quality management systems are an important way to maintain control and meet requirements whilst still keeping the larger picture in focus.

One of the major plusses of on-line systems is the ease and speed with which data can be collated and extracted.  Timely data means that the corrective action process occurs much more quickly, and that potentially important operational changes can be informed.  Many systems have been designed to match the plan-do-check-act quality cycle, or the Six Sigma improvement methodology of define, measure, analyze, improve, control.  Some systems also include risk analysis programmes which are able to prioritize hazards and risks, thus helping companies to focus their valuable time and energy on the riskiest activity. 

Transparency is another positive outcome when using on-line systems.  At any time, management can see how the business is doing, over any number of sites.  It’s in real time, too, so there’s no waiting until the end of month, until the next health and safety meeting, or until the next audit.  Companies can respond more quickly to what’s happening, even at remote sites, thus enabling businesses to be pro-active instead of reactive.

A major downside of paper-based management systems is their reliance on one or two key staff members to operate and maintain them.  As an auditor I have seen the well-being of numerous businesses put in jeopardy when that key person leaves or has become ill.  On-line systems provide security in that they operate independently of staff – when employees leave, become ill or change jobs within the company, the system know-how and intellectual property doesn’t disappear with them.

Conclusion

Well-designed on-line management systems significantly reduce the cost and effort of compliance in terms of dollars saved and energy expended by staff.  They also add fantastic value by giving businesses tools and techniques to improve what they do and how they do it.  The area is but young – Internet technology is changing all the time, and applications that were blue sky thinking five years ago are now everyday tools – which makes it an exciting time to be involved in business generally and quality specifically.

About the author

Craig Thornton is a Director of Mango Limited. Craig is a contract auditor for ISO 9001, ISO 14001, Rail Safety, and AS/NZS 4801.  He is also an ACC approved Health and Safety Auditor.  He has been a Quality Manager and Engineering Manager in various multinational companies in New Zealand including Tait Electronics, Allied Telesis, Skellerup Industries and Amcor.  Craig is the Southern Branch Chairman for the New Zealand Organistion for Quality.

This paper was presented by Craig Thornton and Peter Rogers at the NZ Organisation for Quality's conference in Queenstown in October 2008.

Contact Craig on:
+64 29 377 5444 or email