Integration Management Connects Key Business Systems to Quality: Making the Case for Increasing Visibility into Status of Quality within the Enterprise
In today's business environment, it is nearly impossible to effectively manage operations, quality and the product lifecycle without implementing business software systems. Applications such as Supply-Chain Management (SCM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), and similar systems have become a necessary, if not vital part of enterprise technology. In the past, business systems such as these have served a single purpose for a single set of users within the company. This results in information silos, whereby data across all systems is disconnected or redundant, and communication is hampered between departments.
Quality Management Systems (QMS) are not excluded from this information silo scenario. In many cases, the quality system is a completely separate function of the business, and the connection between the quality system and other business systems is usually achieved through offline forms, periodic reports and verbal communication. While QMS play an important role in the assurance of product quality and process compliance, the business systems that control the products and run the process are "blind" to the status of the quality system.
This paper will discuss the concept of specifically integrating a QMS with enterprise business systems in order to create visibility into status of quality, transfer information to and from these systems and reduce product defects and process noncompliance, as a result increasing overall efficiency.