Success in F&B has a swarm of challenges that go hand in hand with the ability to deliver high quality products and processes. With hurdles such as shrinking operating margins, managing the complex global supply chain, and an ever-tightening regulatory environment, there’s little room for error across the value chain.
Today, market leaders have been adopting closed-loop quality management capabilities to better manage the quality of end-to-end business processes from product ideation through disposal. This type of holistic quality management is imperative for creating an environment that enables the continuous improvement of quality.
This post will highlight how F&B companies are integrating quality management processes with technologies and solutions across the value chain to close the loop on quality management.
Developing a Quality Management Platform
Increasingly, companies are looking to Enterprise Quality Management Software (EQMS) functionalities to improve quality. EQMS standardizes, centralizes, and streamlines quality processes and data from across the value chain. It can be viewed as a platform for communication and collaboration on quality content and processes.
It’s typical for organizations that have not gone through an EQMS implementation to have a disparate set of processes and solutions to manage quality. Sometimes it makes sense to have a quality process that is unique to a local site. However, this is not easily scalable. EQMS is most beneficial when global synergies can be experienced by standardizing a process across the enterprise.
F&B executives aiming to implement an EQMS functionality or solution should look at existing processes and capabilities relative to global needs and pain points. This will help to identify which functionalities may make sense to implement as the global standard. EQMS functionalities important to F&B include:
In developing a platform for managing quality, there are numerous IT approaches that can be taken. Organizations may choose to use a pure-play EQMS vendor. Though, many vendors today are offering integrated EQMS functionalities in solutions beyond those specific to quality management. EQMS functionalities can now also be deployed as an extension of many existing IT applications such as ERP, PLM, and Manufacturing Operations Management or built on a BPM platform.
A Holistic Approach to Quality Management
Regardless of the IT approach taken to close the loop on quality, the goal is for organizations to get people, processes, and technology interacting with one another across the value chain. Market leaders are using EQMS to create feedback loops between processes that traditionally aren’t integrated with one another.
For instance, closed-loop quality can significantly improve supplier quality, which is critical in F&B. An executive looking to improve supplier quality with EQMS should consider functionalities such as supplier portals for collaboration and communication with manufacturing and supplier scorecards to help reduce enterprise risk. Executives should also look at cloud and mobility capabilities to improve quality reach.
Improving Business Performance with EQMS
The additional EQMS functionalities listed above – NC/CAPA, complaint handling, SPC, and more – each have their own role in closing the loop on quality management. On March 27, LNS Research’s President and Principal Analyst, Matthew Littlefield, will be participating in a webcast on the topic of Ensuring Food Safety and Compliance with a Quality Management System.
The webcast will provide an overview of the F&B industry (market drivers, challenges, etc.) as well as a discussion on creating a closed-loop environment with EQMS, the benefits of integrating quality across the value chain, and a set of actionable recommendations executives and managers can apply to their own operations. To join Matthew Littlefield, please follow the button below.
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