Total precision

Even the company name expresses the fact that "high precision" is both a key term and an important customer requirement at Diener AG. "Since we are positioned as a general contractor and offer complete solutions, it is even more important for us to satisfy the process capability required by the customer," explains CEO Rolf Diener. The assistance in product and process development, through commonly validated processes and approved suppliers, result in the high degree of expected safety.

The TQM concept has long been anchored at Diener AG, driven in particular by the standards in the medical sector. In addition to the ISO 9001 certificate, the company therefore complies with the EN ISO 13485 standard, which requires a comprehensive management system for the design and manufacture of medical products, as well as the SQS certificate CE 1250 for dental products that Diener markets. In addition, the company complies with the requirements of ISO 14971, which regulates the application of risk management to medical products.

Why evaluate new QM software?
"In 2014, our Word VB solution finally reached its limits," says Rolf Lössl, Quality Manager at Diener. "Prioritization was almost impossible, the solution generated a lot of search work, was prone to malfunctions and, above all, was tied to a single person," he explains.

In the context of the evaluation for a new QM software two solution fields were in the foreground:

• the clean mapping of processes, incl. document management/quality handbook
• the reliable and efficient handling of complaints management

The decision in favour of the QM tool Improve from Synprovis (Eich LU) was based on six criteria:

• all Q-aspects covered
• Proximity and direct support instead of being looked after by agencies and sub-agencies
• Customization options in own production
• good ERP connection
• no dependencies, e.g. in the area of licenses
• Costs

Diener AG has been working with Improve since 1 January 2015. "We have already achieved many optimizations, and that with little maintenance required by the IT department," says IT Manager Patrick Maag, summarizing the experience to date. True to the TQM philosophy, the company has purchased all Improve modules and applied them successively:

• Customer complaint
• Internal error
• Supplier errors
•  Improvements
• Change message
• Task Management
• Customer survey
• Supplier evaluation
• Maintenance
• Training schedule
• Q documents
• Risk Management
• Audits
• Occupational safety

Central optimizations
According to Rolf Lössl, among the improvements achieved in quality management, the greatest benefits have been achieved in the areas of document management, monitoring of pending issues and document storage.

• "At the Document control With Improve, the change history of process descriptions, work instructions, forms, checklists, etc. is solved in an extremely simple manner," emphasizes the quality manager. Diener AG considers the possibility of assigning validity dates to documents to be particularly valuable, thus ensuring that updates are always kept up to date.
• The Pendency monitoring is equipped with all relevant features. For the employees it is clear at any time what tasks are pending. The backlog reminders sent by the system by e-mail, defined in a weekly rhythm at Diener AG, are an effective aid in the service of meeting deadlines.
• "At the Document storage it would be better to speak of the Search & Find functionality," explains IT manager Patrick Maag, "because with Improve

"We have already achieved many optimizations."

Search times history". All conceivable document types, including videos, can be stored in one place, including history. In addition, Diener has further refined the searchability system with the Improve option of designing input masks yourself.

Many employees involved
Of the 150 or so Diener employees, 30 work intensively and 70 occasionally with Improve. "Through information screens distributed throughout the company, every employee is ultimately confronted with the software," explains Rolf Lössl. "This strong involvement can only work because the tool is amazingly easy to use," says Patrick Maag with conviction. Improve can be learned with little energy and uses the same methodological principle of "record, decide, do, improve" throughout. This analogy to the famous Deming circle (PDCA cycle) is just as much a part of the software's fundamental approach as its event-based approach.

"It works", Rolf Lössl condenses his assessment of the QM tool into two words. "With our Word-based previous solution, the AEG system was used in case of problems: Switch off/Switch on/Good. Fortunately, that's a thing of the past," he smiles.

Customer driven solution
"The fact that the Synprovis software house is very close to its customers is also evident in the case of improvement requests or functional concerns," says IT manager Maag. Customer input is taken seriously and is included in the next software release whenever possible. The annual customer conference in Eich also serves to promote an intensive exchange with users. "In this way, we pursue the same goals as with the software itself, namely greater transparency and noticeable simplification," emphasizes Synprovis CEO Hubert Geisseler.