Customers deserve high-quality products from their favorite companies and businesses. Fortunately, in the age of technology, there’s no shortage of excellent software that can help to streamline your workflows. There are products designed to make complex tasks like accounting, auditing inventory or organizing files simple. Believe it or not, there’s even software that helps you make top-notch products all the time. This may sound like a bedtime story you tell your children or a precious treasure only Indiana Jones could excavate. But rest assured, it exists. It’s called enterprise quality management software (EQMS), a manufacturing ERP that ensures you always meet your top-tier product requirements.
Compare Top Manufacturing ERP Software Leaders
What is EQMS?
EQMS, also known as QMS and electronic quality management software, is a solution that supervises product and business procedures to ensure they’re consistently meeting quality and compliance regulations throughout your production and supply chain methods.
Right now, you might be thinking: “My business is doing just fine. Are you sure I really need this platform?” The short answer is yes. According to a recent study, 55% of respondents who don’t own this software said their quality metrics aren’t properly measured. In the same survey, 47% said their businesses suffer from excessive data sources and systems that inhibit their ability to properly check quality.
If you’re not within any of those percentiles, your business or facility could face other underlying problems such as a lack of visibility into immediate metrics, a disconnected IT structure or problems spotting non-conformances in your facility. In a nutshell, this application can solve these and other issues. There are various types of manufacturing operations that this software can serve. One of these is closed-loop manufacturing.
Closed-Loop
Closed-loop enterprise quality management systems, or any other form of quality management software, verifies that quality protocols are sent throughout every area of a company from internal departments to worksites throughout the globe so everyone is on the same page when it comes to ensuring products are high-quality and compliance-friendly. Closed-loop manufacturing also refers to enterprises reusing materials to make new products to save the use of natural resources and diminish landfill waste.
Benefits
Before you learn about this software’s key features, you must first learn about the benefits that come with it.
Enhances Profitability
This program offers the best of both worlds when it comes to selling products: it verifies that each product meets the required quality standards and follows local and national regulations for safety purposes. It’s a win-win situation. If clients know they’re getting safe high-quality products, they’re likely to keep coming back to your business and even tell their friends about your company.
For example, if all of your couches are upholstered correctly, feel comfortable when people sit on them and don’t cause scratches or rashes — which is what most people usually look for when buying a new couch — your customer satisfaction will increase, resulting in positive online reviews and a growing number of clients, thus increasing profits because this solution puts quality and safety first when creating a product. Not one over the other.
Boosts Employee Efficiency
An exemplar enterprise quality management software can effectively relay critical information to employees. It can promptly allocate particular tasks or roles to employees so they can get to work, accelerating productivity.
Let’s say you have 100 orders for your popular purple and pink-striped couches. This program can help you determine the best way to delegate tasks to your available employees. A few employees could be in charge of hauling in the material while others could be in charge of operating certain machinery for assembly.
Get our Manufacturing ERP Software Requirements Template
Fewer Risks and Better Business Decisions
In-depth analytics and data of your business health, status and whether or not it’s meeting compliance regulations are necessary for making critical business decisions. This solution measures productivity, the quality of your products and other valuable KPIs so when opportunities arise, you can quickly evaluate and make the right decisions for your company. This solution can also detect risks and hazards so your company is always careful and your products are always up to par.
Manage Documents
EQMS can act as a digital filing cabinet for your documents, files and reports with the right document management accessory. You may easily and rapidly navigate and arrange files so your meeting notes don’t accidentally don’t get mixed in with your 100-page business plan for that important meeting with one of your internal stakeholders.
Fluid Integrations
This application can integrate with other PLM, ERP software or CRM tools and is vital to creating a single system that streamlines your workflow and provides accurate data within your facility. If this platform doesn’t communicate with other solutions, it will be more difficult to read what stage of production your product is in or the logistics (i.e. accounting, CRM data and other analytics) of it once it hits the market.
Limitations
Although this software comes with a handful of perks, it does have some drawbacks.
These disadvantages include:
- Cost: Like most software, enterprise quality management software can have hefty price tags. It’s also apparent that just because a solution has a high price tag, it doesn’t mean that it will get the job done.
- Installation Processes: This type of solution can have lengthy implementation processes. Some vendors may not even provide adequate training material.
While an excellent option for some, this type of solution may not be the right manufacturing ERP for your facility. If you find yourself in this position, consider refocusing your attention on our informative comparison guide for more suitable manufacturing programs and features.
Get our Manufacturing ERP Software Requirements Template
Typical Features
Now that you have an idea of how this solution can boost your business, it’s time to review and evaluate some of the key features found in EQMS. It’s important to compile a wishlist of desired features and requirements that you want in a solution. Once that’s finished, you should also develop a list of questions for vendors before making a purchase. Some sample questions include:
- Have you worked with companies similar to my company in terms of size and industry?
- Can this software integrate with my current software?
- Do you have software that fits my ideal deployment (cloud, on-premise, other)?
- Is this software easy or difficult to implement?
Armed with both a list of must-have features and vendor questions, you’ll be ready to evaluate and compare vendors to find one that meets the needs of your business.
Without further ado, here are some of the typical features found within EQMS.
An example of an EQMS’s document management accessory.
Upkeep Compliances and Catch Risks
A compliance and risk management tool usually go hand-in-hand with each other within an enterprise quality management system to ensure you cooperate with regulations and catch risks in your manufacturing practices. However, some programs have them as separate functions.
A compliance management accessory ensures that your product complies with standard manufacturing and environmental regulations such as the food and drug administration (FDA) 21, code of federal regulations (CFR) 21 Part 820, international organization for standardization (ISO) 13485 and 14971 among others. You don’t want lawsuits, immediate shut down of your couch business or other consequences if you don’t meet or violate these or other regulations.
In addition to supervising compliance cooperation, a risk management tool can manage electronic documents and signatures, smooth out manufacturing operations and rapidly notify you of equipment or process changes. For example, if your drilling or turning machine needs maintenance, your risk management tool should alert you so you can take the necessary actions to get it fixed. This module can also formulate methods to alleviate risks seen on the manufacturing floor, recognize trends and chronicle risk-based modifications implemented across your company.
Whether you get risk and compliance management tools individually or as one module, it’s definitely worth the investment to incorporate them within your business.
Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA)
A CAPA accessory allows you to find and correct nonconformances within your operation methods. You can use this tool to conduct an automatic investigation to find the cause of these conformances. Then you can take the suitable means to rectify and block repeating nonconformances. For example, you may find that your drilling tool doesn’t drill every necessary hole for your sofas. You either need to recalibrate, fix or replace your drill machine so you can ensure your sofas are properly and accurately drilled.
Get our Manufacturing ERP Software Requirements Template
Audit Management
This function enables you to keep all of your documents and data in one place to share with or print out for auditors. A proper audit management tool also streamlines the audit process by tracking the right operations as well as scheduling meetings with auditors.
Failure to comply with auditors could lead to massive fines or the shutdown of your company as well, so it’s best to verify all of the proper paperwork, data and reports are at the ready when you need them.
Supplier Management
Ensure that your supply chain meets your company standards with a supplier management tool. This accessory comes with supplier management tools to rate the performance of suppliers so you can determine which ones suit your specific business goals.
For example, if you’re comparing Vendor A to Vendor D in terms of profits and losses, a supplier management tool can exhibit all of the relevant information. This will help you determine whether Vendor A is superior to Vendor D, vice versa, if both vendors are successful or if they’re both lagging.
Training Management
Confirming that all of your employees take and complete your training on everything from quality standards and machinery to sexual harassment and keeping a non-hostile work environment is critical. But it can be cumbersome if you don’t have the proper tools to govern which employee completed a particular training course. A training management attribute helps you stay on top of your employees’ training courses.
For example, Employee A may have completed the sexual harassment, fire drill and machinery training but may have missed the active shooter training. Employee B may have completed the active shooter training but missed the sexual harassment and fire drill courses. EQMS can make these lapses in training more apparent so you can ensure nothing gets missed. The training management tool may also provide up-to-date training material so you and your team always stay in the loop of standards to keep a safe and healthy work environment.
Bottom Line
Enterprise quality management software with training management, CAPA, compliance management and other features may be what you need to ensure healthier quality and compliance measures within your facility. Then again, these features or this type of software may not be what you need. Peruse our handy-dandy comparison guide for other types of manufacturing software and features that might tickle your fancy. The important thing is to invest in a solution that aligns with your practices.
How has EQMS improved your manufacturing facility? Are there any features or requirements we’ve missed that you think should be included in this article? Let us know in the comments!