Standards bring stability

It's clear: small SMEs that fully rely on first-class electronic quality management work more efficiently with fewer people than many large companies. Not surprising: More and more demanding Swiss companies are opting for digital process management. Often observed: The introduction of this innovation turns into an obstacle course.

Full success after only six months
SwissPrimePack AG, a leader in the development and production of high-quality food packaging for customers such as Emmi, Mövenpick and Migros, shows that things can be different. "A competitive market, especially for a Swiss company!" says CEO Jana Walker. "After all, there are foreign solutions. You have to work efficiently and innovatively to stay ahead."

Under these circumstances, SwissPrimePack AG achieved within six months in 2017 what other companies spend years on: the introduction of end-to-end electronic quality management, crowned by ISO 9001:2015 certification in September 2017.

Quality management is for everyone
Walker emphasizes: "The rapid introduction of comprehensive quality management succeeds when everyone is involved. It was important for us to set up our digital assistant correctly and to clearly explain its importance for all employees and our company. All departments had to be involved and trained. All processes had to be secure and stable, because everyone should have access to it.

Wanted: a comprehensive tool
At the time of these considerations (early spring 2017), SwissPrimePack was a few months away from a complex certification process. Already in house: an older license of the Zofingen-based quality management software IQSoft.

Jana Walker evaluated offers from competitors. She didn't want a pure audit tool, but a comprehensive tool for networking all areas of the company. "I saw that our customer Emmi was successfully using IQSoft. That impressed me. In the end, the decisive factor was an IQSoft presentation by Beat Rippstein from IQS AG. He showed my quality manager, Marcus Kriebel, and me comprehensively what the software could do for us in the new, web-based SQL version." Marcus Kriebel adds, "The subsequent collaboration has worked very well. The consulting, the consistency, the human factor: very important for us."

Let's go full throttle!
At SwissPrimePack, this project phase is remembered as "quite an offensive". The pressure was great, certification was approaching. At least a dozen people were involved internally and they also relied on the active support of IQS AG. Marcus Kriebel: "We chose on-site support and we also received templates from IQS AG as a basic framework for process planning. Everyone involved worked well together. I'm grateful for that, because that's why I was able to get to work very efficiently as a quality manager." By the way, not everything was digital during this phase. Kriebel tells us that his employees drew in their wishes on the process templates using ballpoint pens.

A convincing process map for all
And the software itself? Kriebel: "With IQSoft, in addition to all the other BPM features, you get a fantastic visual tool for designing process maps."

This process map - Walker and Kriebel attached importance to this - should work "quite practically". Around May 2017, they therefore began mapping and designing all elements, products and processes. Today, simply everything is mapped in the process map. Every employee can view the organizational chart, the structures and the processes. For example, the setting data of the machines, the quality characteristics of the manufactured products, the performance target or the departmental targets can be called up.

Complete document management also includes work plans, inspection management and complaint management. The data records managed via IQSoft are the only current source. Therefore, only the quality manager is allowed to access the corresponding drive.

Comprehensive efficiency increase
When asked about the result of the not inconsiderable effort, Jana Walker's verdict is clear: "Our ability to deliver, the efficiency, quality and motivation of our people have increased. Markus Kriebel explains: "Today, an employee at a machine can get an up-to-date product drawing with two mouse clicks. In the past, he had to request such drawings by e-mail. But what if the recipient wasn't there? The increase in efficiency is massive."

From the must to the may to the will
Jana Walker emphasises the importance of positive communication, but states: "You have to demand such a change as hard as nails. The implementation has to be right and this is monitored. Fortunately, however, there have only been absolute isolated cases of consequences. Quite the opposite: "We only felt resistance to IQSoft for a very short time. At first, people said: 'Yes, I have to use it now'. And then suddenly we heard: 'That's useful to me! When we walk through the company today, people come up to me and say: 'You'll have to improve that in the case. This machine should be set up better this way and that way'. That's new and we think it's great!"

The effect? The company has become quieter. Thanks to greater transparency, there is probably more understanding among employees. And since everything runs in a very orderly fashion, every employee can go home relaxed and satisfied after his or her assignment: "Before, some specifications were a bit unclear. People didn't know exactly what was right. With IQSoft as a management tool, there are no more ambiguities".

All right. Anytime.
Every successful company makes a point of looking at itself from the inside and the outside. This dual focus on the essentials is facilitated by electronic quality management. At SwissPrime-Pack, this is demonstrated, among other things, by the monthly management review: The management team knows exactly where the company stands in terms of quantity and quality at all times. Either way, certain processes are regularly reviewed, because "otherwise the system wouldn't be up and running".

The extent to which employees are allowed to participate in the knowledge gained varies from SME to SME. SwissPrimePack relies on openness. The general key figures, quality indicators and developments are visible to all interested parties.

The success of the company as an incentive for the individual? Jana Walker says yes. She is convinced that everyone likes to work in a successful company. Marcus Kriebel adds: "Employees can, for example, call up when they can expect which new software at their workplace. People see that something is going on."

Reduced to the bare essentials
Everyone is talking about lean management. For document management, this means: Condense! Get rid of everything you don't really need. At SwissPrimePack, this process turned into a real slimming cure: 500 inconsistent and hardly controlled documents became 150 uniformly structured data records. And above all: "There are now access controls. That alone makes a huge difference.

Documents are cleaned up by quality manager Kriebel: "Employees come to me with suggestions. These ideas are usually good, and then we adapt them.

Are there customer audits? Of course, but they are not a problem, we do very well there. Repeatability is desired, and software like this helps a lot.

Minimized to the maximum
Jana Walker takes stock: "Whether in terms of quality, performance or motivation, we have achieved a great deal, linked numerous processes to strategy and mission statement, created a very high level of transparency and done so in a fully integrated system. We know all the values and processes we want to know. Such standards bring stability." Marcus Kriebel's perspective: "All relevant information flows together and is available. The access time has been greatly minimized. IQSoft makes work very easy from the QM point of view."

All good, all done?
Even if everything works, there is always room for improvement. On the wish list of SwissPrimePack AG: the introduction of the EDUQ training module and - despite successful certification - the activation of the IQSoft audit module. Marcus Kriebel is looking forward to this step: "With IQSoft, complicated processes can be mapped on one A4 page. However, the audit preparations are time-consuming. We can gladly optimize that."

Conclusion? Quality optimization is not a duty for SwissPrimePack AG, but a matter of the heart. Two more IQSoft mo
dule? Even more quality and efficiency?