When people think about quality management, unless you work in high tech or in an industry that has factories, it can be a bit of an abstract concept. Quality management is the all-encompassing term used in regards to a business, and it focuses on the areas of planning, policy, assurance, control, and improvement. These five areas all need to be monitored and adjusted, if a business is going to achieve and maintain products and services that are of the highest quality. Quality management software or QMS software can be used to ensure that your company continues its track record of excellence, all while streamlining your quality protocols.
Quality Control Planning
Whether your company produces cosmetics or medical equipment, quality management and the associated processes must be in place. When it comes to planning, QMS software can help with each component. Gone are the days of binders and files full of paper plans, and here are the days of online modules. As soon a new product is in development, the planning component must begin. This product is going to have to go through trials, and testing to make sure that it works the way it is supposed to. An unfinished product cannot be rushed to the marketplace. QMS software can be used as early as the planning stage, to make sure that all of the regulations concerning product production are met. It can also be used by suppliers, to ensure that the components they are providing meet the same set of quality regulations that your company is adhering to.
Incident Reporting
During the planning and the production phase, incidents can occur. These can be simple ones, such as office employees suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome from typing too much. In other cases, there can malfunctions with technical equipment used to produce the products. These can be far more serious, and then incident reports have to be filed. QMS software makes incident reporting easy. Each employee has a file in the system, which they can access and file a report as soon as an incident occurs. From there, the software can analyze other incident reports to see if there is a trend, and perhaps a certain piece of equipment actually requires replacement, or employees are not following the safety regulations the way they should be. With all of this information at your fingertips, products and employees will be kept safe.
Quality Control and Assurance
Nobody wants to buy a product or service only to find out that it is not of the quality they thought it would be. That is why quality needs to be monitored constantly, and the products themselves need to be tested to ensure that there are no defects. Sometimes a batch of a certain product, such as a lipstick, will not conform to the quality standards of previous products. This implies that there was an issue either with the supplier in terms of quality ingredients, or a problem on the production line. Quality management software can easily pinpoint where these issues occurred, and then they can be fixed before any subpar products hit the shelves. Customers want perfect, not passable products.