Fit for ISO recertification with cloud solution

At Grob, based in Nebikon, Lucerne, innovation has always been a top priority. Since its founding, the manufacturer of gears has been constantly developing itself in order to advance new manufacturing technologies and optimize costs. This innovative strength is reflected in the continuous modernization of the machine park in order to meet the changing requirements of customers from all over the world. Three years ago, for example, Grob expanded its manufacturing facility to a total area of 4,000 square meters in order to create space for the 44 CNC-controlled machine tools, six of which have automatic loading systems for unmanned shift operation. Founded 70 years ago in a cellar as a two-man company, Grob has grown into a company with 44 employees and currently three apprentice polymechanics and is at the cutting edge of technological development. This is reflected, among other things, in the LCS 500 from Liebherr, which went into operation in 2015 and with which Grob is able to run profile and generating grinding in just one process, thus further reducing efficiency in production as well as operating costs. In addition, Grob has recently optimized its organization to lean management in order to further increase efficiency and quality in the processes. It goes without saying that Grob's ongoing optimization also includes certification in accordance with ISO 9001:2015.

Upgrade to new ISO standards
This upgrade to ISO 9001:2015 was accompanied by the introduction of a new quality management platform, as the existing solution - a 20-year in-house development - had reached the end of its life cycle. Not only the upcoming audit for the ISO recertification gave the impetus for a new QM solution, but also the quality problems caused by the old system. The main reason for this was the insufficient user-friendliness. Production manager Rafael Fellmann puts it in a nutshell: "The need for improvement of the process documentation had become particularly apparent in the case of deputies, because the old system was simply not used." Thus, for example, deputies did not know where the information on process flows was made available. It was therefore obvious to procure software for the new solution that would convey more familiarity to users with its look and feel and ensure the necessary usability. It is well known that a system is only as good as its users accept it. This is one of the reasons why Fellmann decided to introduce an improved QM system based on Sharepoint Online. What is particularly interesting about Office 365 with Sharepoint Online are the application possibilities in the areas of collaboration and document management.

Replacement of the existing IT system
In January 2016, Fellmann awarded IOZ the contract for the introduction of a new portal based on Office 365. The goals of this project were to make Grob fit for recertification according to ISO 9001:2015, to renew the process documentation and to map it in a new IT system. Fellmann decided in favour of IOZ after obtaining a reference from a friendly company and receiving positive feedback on the quality of the cooperation with the Sursee-based Microsoft partner. The project was launched in the spring. In a first step, the project team analyzed the existing QM system and defined the organization's quality management needs. The new system was developed in an iterative procedure: Instead of a prototype, the solution was developed step-by-step and expanded to include various elements such as processes, default documents, news feed, document storage, CIP, etc.

Gap analysis of the management system
In the gap analysis, the actual state of the documented system was compared with the requirements of the ISO 9001:2015 standard. In this step, gaps were jointly identified by specialist representatives of Grob and IOZ. Through concrete and proven practical examples, it was subsequently possible to work out together how these gaps should be closed in the interests of the organisation. As part of the lean administration project, a process analysis was carried out to optimise the processes. It was important to ensure that the newly defined process structure also corresponded to the processes lived in practice. Some proposed changes resulted from the new requirements for the ISO update. The biggest gap was in communication with internal and external stakeholders, which is given greater importance in ISO 9001:2015. "Thanks to the requirements analysis, we have gained a more holistic view of the market, for example because relationships with customers and suppliers are now increasingly included in the risk assessment. Internal communication has also been given a thorough check-up and responsibilities, for example, have been better regulated," says Fellmann. IOZ also supported Grob in migrating the data so that Fellmann and the department representatives could assign the revised documents to the core processes in the process map and place them correctly in the right place.

The day of truth approaches After
After all tasks had been completed, the recertification was approached with confidence. It turned out that although the improvements met the standard requirements, in practice they had not yet reached the organisation sufficiently. "Given the short turnaround time of the project, this was to be expected," says Fellmann. "The duration between the completion of the change project and the date of certification was simply too short for that." Fellmann responded by initiating organization-wide training workshops for the new system. In this way, the management's specifications could be brought to the necessary maturity together with the organization. In addition, further activities were initiated to better exploit the collaboration potential of Office 365 and thus simplify collaboration in the company. Overall, the project was mastered in a short time, although the effort on the customer side was perhaps underestimated a little. Fellmann therefore advises giving the necessary weight to the internal time required. "With the recertification, we can now not only meet the customer requirements regarding ISO standard, but we have also learned a lot." The optimised risk management can now be used effectively to improve the business strategy, Fellmann is certain.