Highest quality at all levels

The starting signal for today's quality management of BST eltromat International was ultimately the merger of the companies BST International, based in Bielefeld, and eltromat, based in Leopoldshöhe. Both companies already had quality management systems and certification according to ISO 9001:2008. eltromat also had ATEX certification for certain products. Furthermore, both companies had implemented measures for the occupational health and safety of their employees in the management system.

The task now was to merge the systems while retaining the existing certifications. In addition, the joint quality management was to be strengthened in the areas of occupational health and safety as well as the environment. In view of the size of the company achieved through the merger, certification in accordance with ISO 50001 (energy management) was also mandatory from a legal point of view. All in all, the quality management of the new company BST eltromat has a big task to cope with after the merger.

You cannot achieve excellence with standard certifications
In all this, it was quickly agreed that BST eltromat cannot really differentiate itself from its competitors in the global market and offer its customers added value with standard certifications. Standard certifications such as ISO 9001 in the area of quality management or ISO 14001 in the area of environmental management are being demanded by more and more customers, while ATEX certifications such as RL 2014/ 34/EU together with ISO/IEC 80079-34 are required by law in certain areas. If BST eltromat wants to further expand its position as a market-leading manufacturer of quality assurance systems and secure it in the long term, the company must strategically align its quality management and make it clearly recognizable as a supporting pillar of the - traditionally long-term - partnerships with its customers.

It was obvious that this goal could only be achieved with a comprehensive integrated management system, an "excellence strategy" that takes a holistic view of the company organization and aims to continuously optimize the quality of all processes. In this way, the efficiency of the company was to be increased across all processes. At the same time, the company wanted to learn from best practices worldwide, implement them in its own company and develop them further - in order to ultimately become a role model for other companies in the industry. True to the motto: Who only imitates, remains at most second. "Anyone who develops, manufactures and sells quality assurance systems must make high demands on their own quality management system," says Dr.-Ing. Johann-Carsten Kipp, Managing Director of the Technology Division, summing up the approach on which quality management at BST eltromat is based.

A pioneering integrated approach
Companies often set up parallel management systems for the areas of quality, environment, energy and occupational health and safety, among others. At BST eltromat, on the other hand, the integration or networking of these systems into an all-encompassing management system with a holistic view of the company was recognized as the right way to achieve the desired excellence, i.e. an above-average performance level, at all levels.

From BST eltromat's point of view, the definition of the term quality also suggests an integrative management approach - as long as quality is understood as the degree of congruence between the demands and expectations on companies (requirements) and the effects and results (performance). No matter whether quality management, environmental protection, occupational health and safety, energy management, data protection, compliance or other areas: Ultimately, all management system disciplines are concerned with harmonizing the requirements of customers, business partners, employees and legislators, among others, with the performance of companies. Thus, this quality concept can fully serve as the basis of an integrated management system - whereby a networked system also offers the advantage that it can ideally take into account the effects of changes in one area on the other areas. Of course, complex, cross-divisional relationships and interactions can be better coordinated in an integrated system than in several, separately implemented systems.

Management system based on integrated control loops
With a holistic view of the organization, BST eltromat's quality management developed a "process map" that takes into account all corporate processes. The individual processes are assigned to three strands: One strand is formed by the management processes, which include, for example, corporate strategy, personnel development, finance and the management system. The second strand contains the support processes, such as human resources, innovation management or IT, which must ensure that the core processes (third strand) function as well as possible. Within these, there are again three main strands: creation of new products, sale and manufacture of products and projects, and provision of services with central corporate functions such as development, purchasing, production, sales and service.

All processes are jointly analysed by those responsible at regular intervals with the help of the management system. In workshops, the current status is determined, new goals are set and/or concepts for the future are developed. After a defined period of time, a joint review is carried out to determine whether the goals set and the desired effect have been achieved. The results of these analyses in turn form the basis for the development of further improvements. In this way, integrated control loops have been created for all company processes, which - metaphorically speaking - are constantly repeated and raise all company processes to a constantly higher level of quality or keep them there.

With the help of the process map and the control loops, BST eltromat is not only able to master the enormous complexity of the company-wide Excellence Strategy, but also to implement the process optimizations with the required speed. An important role is played by the fact that the integrated management system assigns responsibility for implementing the jointly defined optimizations to those responsible for the processes.

Risk-based approach
The integrated management system is based on a risk-oriented approach. Today's standards and laws, as well as the market environment, require companies more than ever to assess where they are exposed to risks. Where can undesirable developments occur that threaten our quality - from our products to our processes to the markets in which we operate? Where are these risks rather high? Where are they less? Where the management system identifies major risks that it can influence, it implements appropriate control and monitoring mechanisms. Where it considers the risks to be rather low, it takes a simplified approach. This approach runs like a thread through the entire integrated system.

The optimization process of the Excelence strategy is therefore a never-ending task. Especially since standards, laws and markets are subject to permanent change. For example, ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 have been amended by the responsible bodies since 2015. Other management system standards are currently being revised. In the future, these standards will all be subject to a uniform structure with largely identical content and discipline-dependent additions (High Level Structure). This makes it necessary to adapt the existing management systems.

Cost-benefit analysis
High quality can only be achieved by companies that are prepared to make the corresponding investments. And the higher the desired level of quality, the higher the investments required. But if the Excellence Strategy is implemented successfully, these investments pay off. One consideration alone illustrates the connection: those who achieve high quality in their processes will in turn reduce their error costs. At BST eltromat, the economic optimum was determined within the framework of a cost-benefit analysis - i.e. the point at which the requirements of the company and its services ideally match. The process optimizations achieved in the course of the excellence strategy now contribute to pushing down the cost curve and thus successively bringing the economic optimum to the point of maximum customer enthusiasm.

In the long term, a successful excellence strategy will change the fundamental ways of thinking and behaving in the company, i.e. the corporate culture. Among other things, employees will identify more strongly with their areas of work and responsibility. They will know that they offer advice, products and services of a special quality from which their customers benefit. A working atmosphere is created that triggers fascination and increased personal initiative. You could also put it this way: With the integrated management system, BST eltromat reaches a higher level of maturity and becomes an "enthusiasm leader".

In this way, customers and BST eltromat benefit equally from the excellence strategy. Thanks to the high quality of their supplier's solutions and services, customers have advantages over their competitors and can meet their customers' requirements better than their market competitors.

BST eltromat, in turn, can act as a market leader in international competition. The pioneering role is perceived accordingly - with all the opportunities that arise from this. But also with the challenge of securing this market position in the long term with the help of the integrated management system.