Although we’re not even halfway through the year, 2016 has already seen a number of leading brands such as Mars, Starbucks and Aldi encountering serious issues with their quality management. From issues with quality control of stock, to product recalls on a popular line of foodstuffs, it seems that no company is safe from the issues of quality control, no matter its size.
However, most of these catastrophes could have been prevented with a simple digital Quality Management System (QMS). A system that would ensure employees can input the correct data, ask for a quality check at every step of the process and could save the company money, time and more importantly, an embarrassing PR scandal.
Our recent research campaign highlighted that 44% of consumers would never purchase from a retailer again if they were to be sold a faulty product, and more than half (55%) wouldn’t return to a retailer that sold them a product which had to later be recalled.
Here we look at the top five consequences of poor quality management:
1. Missed goals and objectives – QMS can aid a business to achieve its goals and objectives. It focuses on the development of products and services that meet the needs and exceed the expectations of key customer groups. Digital QMS systems eradicate human error, something which cannot be done with a paper based system, which not only relies on employees to implement, but costs valuable time and money.
2. Lack of consistency – People aren’t perfect and human error can account for a large amount of mistakes made by a company. This can be made even greater if any employees suffer from a mental disability such as; autism or dyslexia. A company has a duty to make reasonable adjustments in the workplace for employees with a disability and failure to do so can mean the company faces legal litigation.
By providing staff with a digital QMS, where the opportunity for human error is significantly reduced and key issues with quality control (such as incorrect figures) are flagged within a matter of minutes to head office, ensuring consistent and accurate results each time – something which cannot be done with a handwritten procedure.
3. Cost implications – Digital QMS is a multi-faceted one – not only can it ensure all products are of the highest calibre and help employees to input data, but it can also remind businesses to renew any licenses that the company needs to function smoothly. It recognises specific licenses and will act as a reminder when it’s time to renew them.
All companies know that forgetting to renew a licence can be a costly error and spending all your time and energy using a paper-based QMS could mean that these tasks slip your mind, costing your business unnecessary money.
4. Poor Customer Service – Our research proved that 45% of consumers had sent food back in a restaurant because it wasn’t up to the standard they expected, with the main complaints including food served containing a hair (10%), being mouldy (7%) or being served with a foreign object (8%). It isn’t only eating establishments that are at risk though, 94% of customers revealed they would boycott any facility or store if they had a bad experience.
This is mostly due to inefficient, paper-based QMS that run the risk of entering incorrect dates or forgetting to conduct inspections. Without a central system ensuring a company is providing the best possible service at all times, faults are able to occur easily and in high volumes.
5. Lack of efficiency – A QMS should report on jobs and tasks that need to be done and record exactly when a certain issue was identified. Although a paper-based QMS can do this, it is easy for staff to procrastinate and not actually do the quality checks, or incorrectly record the required information to flag any faults that may occur in a facility.
A digital QMS can streamline this process of issue flagging; QMS saves an organisation time and money by allowing problems to be fixed as soon as possible, avoiding any embarrassing mishaps.
With these advantages to a digital QMS, businesses are exposing themselves to an opportunity to lose large amounts of potential revenue every time they use a paper-based system.
For more information on digital QMS and how the processes operate, email learnmore@altodigital.com
