Intelex Attends the 4th Annual Food Quality Symposium

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Alison Grenkie

Bevin Lyon and Jeremy Mawson are representing Intelex’s Food and Beverage team at the NLS Food Quality Symposium this week in Indian Wells, California. The symposium is now in its fourth year and features industry networking and thought leadership from some of the world’s leading food manufacturers. Among the attendees are a few Intelex clients, including Bimbo Bakeries, Hillshire Brands and The Wornick Company.

Hot topics of conversation this year are the Food Safety Modernization Act and the recommendations for food defense measures that have been developed by FSIS and FDA.

Intelex’s Food and Beverage team helps companies manage suppliers, ensure compliance, keep their workforces safe and ensure the quality of their products. For a full list of Intelex’s food and beverage clients, visit our clients page.

Get back to the meaning of Quality with 9001: A Quality Odyssey

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Paul Leavoy

Think quality is boring? That can only be attributable to human error.

Sure: bolt sizes, calibrations, documents, procedures, work instructions…yeah, there’s nothing particularly compelling about all that, on the surface, anyway. Dig a little deeper, however, and you’ll be surprised what you find.

If you missed our exclusive webinar, 9001: A Quality Odyssey, check it out whenever you like by heading over to our on-demand webinar library. This decidedly un-boring special presentation will open the pod bay doors of your mind by getting back to the meaning of quality management and turning to the very roots of standardization.

Far from a boring history lesson, A Quality Odyssey will link the quality standards of today to the very need for standardization and measurement in the first place, and look at the evolution of quality systems throughout the ages and what they mean for businesses today.

Sign up today to learn how to put your quality system to its fullest possible use…which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.

Quality management and ISO 9001…in municipalities?

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Paul Leavoy

These days ISO 9001 has become such a pervasive term, and while some might not know exactly what it means, almost everyone has seen the words pop up on the sides of manufacturers, machine shops, and other industrial facilities.

But while the quality management standard specification can apply to literally any business in any industry, many are still surprised to imagine that its scope goes beyond the walls of discrete manufacturers and processing plants. Indeed, it even applies to municipalities. Except, instead of describing a process for how a bolt is tightened, in the context of a municipal corporation, ISO 9001 might dictate how a customer service call is handled. In either case, the underlying methodology for describing the processes will ultimately be similar.

Those in the municipal sector who are looking to develop or improve a quality management program shouldn’t miss our our feature webinar, Quality City: The value of ISO 9001 and Quality Management in Municipalities. This joint webinar will be hosted by Intelex and David Forget, the Town of Ajax‘s manager of quality service. Ajax was the first municipality in North America to achieve full ISO 9001 certification, an accomplishment that David spearheaded.

Among other things, including specific examples of Ajax’s situation, David will discuss:

The benefits and ROI that flow from implementing a quality management program within a municipal organization.
The challenges municipalities can expect to face when rolling out a quality management system.
Getting buy-in for a quality program from senior management.
Why seek ISO 9001 certification for your municipal corporation.
The relationship between streamlined quality management and improved business performance.

Whether you work with a municipality directly, or in any other service-based organization, you won’t want to miss this opportunity. Reserve your spot over at the webinar registration page.

Planning for the unforeseeable through supplier evaluation

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Paul Leavoy

Having the flexibility to identify, contain, and adapt to foreseeable and unforeseeable issues is critical to a comprehensive response plan for quality nonconformances and product recalls. Proactive, responsible companies that implement comprehensive vendor/supplier/contract manufacturer evaluation programs and performance tracking systems as components of an overall quality management system (QMS) will boost preparedness and ensure smooth responses to otherwise devastating product recall scenarios.

Any business — large companies especially — should select contract manufacturers in the same way they select suppliers and other vendors: with thorough research, hand-on inspection and rigorous screening.

A good way to think of it is this: Treat suppliers, vendors and contract manufacturers as if they are your own facilities. Even if they are not providing you with an end-user product, if your company name is going to be on the final product, your customers will view you as responsible and you will be ultimately accountable for the defect.

The alternative – basic adherence to minimal regulatory requirements – does not constitute the wisest PR and quality assurance philosophy. Recall that five years ago, a nationwide recall on children’s toys containing lead paint—and manufactured in China—cast a pall on the integrity of the country’s quality standards. It also forced American toy giant Mattel to recall more than 18 million products and face significant brand damage.

Even entrenched brand images can be dealt significant blows by product recalls, especially when those recalls affect the lives and health of children. For quality managers at companies that rely on contract manufacturers and suppliers overseas, such situations are a call to action: a proactive corporate ethos on quality management — and supply chain traceability in particular — will not only save time and costs long term, it will ensure products exceed minimal regulatory requirements and avert potential public relations and brand image crises. A comprehensive QMS that enables enhanced supply chain traceability and supplier relationship management is the hallmark of such an approach and will inevitably save costs in the long run.

Five Ws: Avoiding the nightmare of a product recall

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Paul Leavoy

Eggs. Toy trucks. Spinach. Meds. And now walnuts.

Recalls — and not the good kind — are a daily reality within an interconnected, modern global economy. But for the unprepared business, a product recall can be a logistical and PR nightmare, costing significant capital, and precious hours of downtime as well as — perhaps most significantly — irreparable damage to delicately nurtured brand image.

Since consumer activist agencies and public awareness at large tend to be a few steps ahead of legislators and regulatory bodies on public safety concerns, it is imperative businesses stay a few steps ahead of the game. For companies that rely on contract manufacturers, this can be easily achieved with a comprehensive quality management system (QMS).

Some essential questions — often rendered complex by the size and scope of large corporations — can be resolved with straightforward answers if an electronic QMS has been put into place.

For example, an electronic QMS is capable of providing quality managers the answers to what are known as the ‘five Ws’ of product recalls:

What: In the event of a product recall, the fundamental reason for the recall will narrow-down investigative work and help quality managers build a list of questions and criteria to determine who in the supply chain is responsible for the defect or issue in question.
Who: A company that relies on contract manufacturers around the world must determine which supplier within its supply chain is associated with the defective or unsafe part or product.
Where: The “who” and “where” questions are intrinsically related, for once it is established who is responsible for the issue, it can be broadly determined where the issue arose. But it is also essential to isolate where exactly — specifically within the manufacturing line of the contract supplier, for example — the defect was caused.
When: Supply chains can be complex systems, but it is important to have the capacity to determine when a defect or issue arose within the system.
Why: The other ‘Ws’ of product recalls will help a quality manager determine why a defect or issue arose. Answering this question quickly and effectively will help a business develop an action plan to respond to the product recall.

Quality managers strive for the often elusive goal of perfection but must come to grips that even in the most highly monitored systems and well-oiled machines, somewhere, somehow — by the laws of probability and human fallibility — an issue will likely arise. This probability is mitigated, however, if an electronic QMS has been implemented in the place of archaic spreadsheet- or paper-based tracking and supply chain traceability systems.

Quality’s expanding role: from manufacturing to marketing

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Paul Leavoy

Given the broad scope of applicability quality management has adopted in the past two decades, it is understandable that some level of abstraction clouds its purpose.

Before ISO 9001 — indeed, before its 1971 precursor, BS 9000, a set of standards published by the British Standards Institution (BSI) to guide quality management in the electronics industry — and even before the popularity of statistician and quality management pioneer Edward Deming, the need for robust quality management was quite concrete, especially in a military context.

During World War II, the inadvertent detonation of munitions in a weapons factory as the result of sloppy handling or process oversight carried particularly disastrous results: the loss of life, raw materials, time, money, manpower and military advantage. It was this very context that spurred the consistent documentation of specific control processes and procedures; the methodical execution of activities that conformed to documented standards; and the ongoing inspection and auditing of processes and procedures to ensure higher quality, better safety and organizational advantage.

The vast popularity of Deming’s ‘Plan-Do-Check-Act’ methodology and quality control philosophy in post-war Japan essentially solidified the role of quality management across manufacturing sectors in Japan and, eventually, across the U.S.

Nearly seven decades later, quality management has extended its reach significantly and, far from the assembly lines of munitions factories and discrete manufacturers, is now applied to the more nebulous realms of sales, marketing, client care, and service industries of all breeds. Now, rather than documenting how a bolt is fastened or a flow metre is calibrated to ensure consistency in machine operation, a service organization must document how a call is initiated to ensure customer satisfaction and retention, for example. Further, the need to expand the scope of a quality program beyond an organization’s immediate operations and across its entire supply chain and vendor base has become increasingly important. The need for quality management, in other words, is everywhere.

Though industries and applications have changed, the benefits are plain: a robust, electronic QMS means improved product and service quality, organizational advantage, and, most importantly, greater profits.