Certificate verification and administration is a crucial part of the inspections of incoming goods. However, manufacturing companies are experiencing difficulties in manually validating incoming data due to unreliable or missing data, as well as unsecure and poor traceability. A digital solution can help you to address these quality challenges, and in this article you can read how.
In a manufacturing company, efficient incoming inspections, certificate verification and administration are crucial to ensure product quality, mitigate supply chain risks, and comply with regulatory requirements. By conducting accurate inspections and certificate management, companies can reduce the risk of issues and improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of their production processes. Still incoming inspection of certificates is managed manually in a lot of the companies, with lack of transparency, and inaccurate possibilities to trace data along the value chain.
Here is a selection of opportunities to leverage from for companies who choose a more digital process for their incoming quality inspections:
1. Authenticity
By collecting quality related data digitally, instead of in a manually generated pdf format for example, you can mitigate the risks of fraudulent documents, missing verification, and signatures. A digital quality management process also assure that all necessary order, part, and batch information are correct. As it includes a digital thread to who issued and approve the document and when this was done, it will prove a better authenticity.
2. Accuracy and compliance
A quality assurance document often includes a lot of data that needs to be verified to be compliant with the latest requirements and regulations. By collecting this data digitally, automatic validation and notifications can be placed to detect that all data is present and within specification. From digital material certificates with chemical composition data, it is easy and accurate to verify compliance to regulations, such as REACH and Restricted Material Lists.
3. Traceability and searchability
Digital quality document management can automatically update your company’s order and product information directly from your ERP, ensuring easy and accurate linking between ordered and delivered batch. It provides fast and precise traceback and recall in case of quality alerts. Along with a more transparent and efficient quality document management, it also provides full ability to search for and trace any data linked to the document management process.
4. Analytics and continuous improvements
One of the most important and powerful advantages of collection digital data is the opportunity to analyze the data. When you use it in advanced machine learning applications together with internal process data you can find correlations between the properties of the received material batch and the outcome in the manufacturing process in terms of productivity and quality. This is of great value when working with systemized continuous improvements. It also helps you to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of inspections and enable quality managers to make more informed decisions.
5. Transparency and streamlining
A digital tool can help quality managers and teams to get a more streamlined process. It reduces the time and efforts required for verification and administration, including automated data collection for both quality, sustainability, and supply chain purposes. The real-time communication a digital solution provides also increases the transparency, as it empowers all stakeholders involved in the process to be on track with the right updates and access to the same information at the same. This also enables you to identify and resolve issues more quickly and efficiently.
What possibilities do you and your company see in data sourcing and digital tooling within quality and certificate management? In our on-demand webinar “The role of digitalization in Quality Management” you can learn more about how you can digitalize supplier collaboration and improve internal processes like part approval, incoming inspections, internal quality control and certificate management. Watch the webinar here
