Tag Archives: QMS

The Global Supply Chain is Under Pressure: People, Not Tools, Can Save It

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Labor shortages in the global supply chain are cuasing shortages of fuel and food.
During the pandemic, global supply chains have kept food, vaccines and consumer goods moving. Now, the cracks are starting to show as labor shortages lead to food and fuel crises. 

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, people gave little thought to the workings of the global supply chain. In the world of Amazon and Google, most of us have become accustomed to getting everyday items—from groceries to luxury devices—delivered to our front door simply by engaging a few buttons on our cell phones. While the pandemic might have had a marginal impact on some of the things we were able to obtain, many of us have lived our lockdown lives without any significant disruption to our consumption of material goods. 

However, recent events might suggest that all is not well with the global supply chain. The International Chamber of Shipping has published an open letter to world governments and the World Health Organization (WHO) advocating … Read more...

Lessons from 9/11: How Systems Fail and People Rise to the Occasion

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9/11 is more than just a traumatic scar on our memories. It is also a reminder of how systems lacking due care and preparation can fail in a crisis, and of how human beings with training and empathy can shine a powerful light into the darkness to bring aid to those who need it most. 

For those of us of a certain vintage, it’s hard to believe that 9/11 was twenty years ago. Watching footage of the events of that day brings back memories so vivid that it feels as though we’re experiencing them again for the first time. 9/11 is a scar on our collective consciousness. For those who lost someone in the attacks, it is a trauma that will never completely heal. 

It’s striking that the way we refer to that event—“9/11”—demonstrates an intriguing way we think about time in relation to cataclysmic disasters. “9/11” represents a day, a twenty-four-hour … Read more...

Summer Reading: Blog Posts You Might Have Missed

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Missed a few blogs? Here’s an opportunity to catch up on your reading!

Have You Started Planning for Post-Pandemic Procurement?
Many organizations now are considering more options, such as repatriation and re-shoring, to increase the agility of their supply chains.

Are You Ready to Build a Principle-Based Safety Culture?
Is worker safety and health the foundation upon which everything else at your organization is built?

Data Quality – It’s a Dirty Job, but Someone’s Got To Do It
Forty-seven percent of newly-created data records have at least one critical (e.g., work-impacting) error.

Changing Business for Good: Why I Do What I Do
Rowing in the same direction: Gavin Stephenson exlains why he’s proud to be part of the Intelex team.

Mining Pain Points and Solutions: How Technology Makes the Difference
Our infographic highlights some interesting mine safety and health facts, pain points and solutions.

The Top 10+1 Hot Tips for … Read more...

How to Enhance RFP Preparedness to Ensure a Smoother Journey to Completion: A Quick and Easy Approach

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“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail,” is as timeless and universal as it gets.

While preparation does take work – at least upfront – it usually makes the rest of the journey smoother and shorter. In sum, it can lead to a more successful outcome, which is the objective of all business plans.


RFP Preparedness for ESHQ Software Procurement Projects: The Essentials


With budget season only a short distance away, procurement projects for the following year are also ready to start. As expected, software solution projects in ESHQ follow the same approach. Once you’ve figured out the basics—the budget, business and technical requirements and timelines—you can get right into the industry or sector-specific requirements.


With EHSQ software procurement projects having specific considerations, it’s important to know exactly what your organization requires to meet your ESHQ goals. The next logical step is to determine the real capabilities and … Read more...

RFPs Help You Compare Apples to Apples in Your Search for Solutions

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Top companies embrace change as an opportunity to transform their business and beat the competition. They actively research, procure, deploy and manage new hardware, software and services to lower costs and increase revenues. Creating a request for proposal (RFP) often is an early step in finding solutions to your organization’s pain points.

RFPs standardize project specifics such as goal(s), scope, timeline and budget for potential vendors, and ensure you are comparing apples to apples. RFPs are a common best-practice for procurement by private and public companies and governments. In fact, the average public sector organization runs 18 RFPs a year.

“Major changes to your business require an expenditure of resources, including what can be a significant investment in time and money. The return on your investment should be EHSQ software that spans the gaps across functions and can connect with other systems at your organization that are part of production, … Read more...

Compliance at the Speed of Risk

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I recently read that risk management begins and ends with decision making. Perhaps this is right, but I believe not in the sense that this statement was originally made. Risk management is more than just identifying the value at risk and deciding which is the best option. While this is important it is only half of the story.

Every plan, every project, every business endeavor operates in the presence of uncertainty and this uncertainty creates the opportunity for risk. This affects decision making, of course, but also affects how a company is organized, structured, the systems and processes that are put in place, and the culture it needs to contend with uncertainty as they make progress towards their goals and mission success.

Unfortunately, up until now, many companies build their defenses around disparate management systems implemented across functional silos and reinforced by reactive behaviors. This creates the possibility for risk … Read more...

World Quality Day 2019: Leading Quality for 100 Years

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World Quality Day – November 14 – provides a forum to reflect on how we can implement more effective processes and systems that positively impact KPIs and business results.

Each year, the second Thursday of November is set aside to reflect on the way quality management can contribute to our work and our lives. Led by the Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) in the United Kingdom, World Quality Day provides a forum to reflect on how we can implement more effective processes and systems that positively impact KPIs and business results — and celebrate outcomes and new insights.

This year’s theme marks the centennial of the CQI’s efforts to grow and expand attention to quality across the United Kingdom and in Europe.

We usually think of quality as an operations function. The quality system (whether we have quality management software implemented or not) helps us keep track of the health and … Read more...

Root Cause Analysis and the Tools You Need to Drive Continuous Improvement

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Root Cause Analysis is part of an ecosystem of tools and techniques you can implement to help your organization harness the value from their EHSQ integrated management systems. Improving your organization’s processes requires identifying a methodology and approach that can spur innovation through evidence-based analysis.  

Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is one of several methodologies in your toolkit – including Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA), Control Plans and Corrective Actions (CAR or CAPA) – that can be used to uncover the reasons for safety incidents or near misses, occupational health issues, environmental issues like repeated violations and quality events like recalls and nonconformances. Implementing a framework that incorporates multiple analysis tools to achieve a desired outcome can result in measurable results.  

Top Five Tools for Continuous Improvement

These tools can be extremely valuable for performance when used proactively — and in conjunction with one another. Here’s how they might be used together:   

  1. Identify potential failure modes through a Process Failure Mode Effects
… Read more...

Ensuring Food Safety with Quality Management Software

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Food safety characteristics have a very close connection to food quality characteristics, and while all food safety characteristics relate to quality, not all food quality characteristics relate to safety. Food quality, according to Alli (2016), relates to ensuring that products meet the established requirements for food characteristics. Garvin (1987) describes eight dimensions for measuring the characteristics of food quality: performance, features, reliability, conformance, durability, serviceability, aesthetics, and perceptions. Food safety, which relates to the characteristics that have the potential to be harmful to human health by causing illness, falls under the performance and reliability dimensions of food quality. Food safety characteristics are therefore specific kinds of food quality characteristics.

By recognizing that food safety and food quality have an integrated relationship, organizations can bring quality methods and tools to bear on the difficulties of navigating food safety regulations in their FSMS (Food Safety Management System). With food supply chains now … Read more...

Using QMS Software to Tame the Complexity of Food Regulations

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Not many safety failures hit the headlines quite the way those in the food industry do. With high-profile incidents like the 2013 horse meat scandal in the EU, the listeria contamination at Maple Leaf Foods in 2008, and the seemingly constant cadence of recalls involving leafy greens, food safety failures have the potential to create foodborne illnesses that cause serious harm to human health and significant financial damage to the organizations at the heart of them.

Global supply chains for food products have only increased the complexity of the compliance requirements for food safety. Organizations in the international marketplace must consider standards and frameworks such as ISO 22000:2018, FSSC 22000, ISO 9001:2015, HAACP (Hazard Analysis and Control Points), and the many voluntary standards of Codex Alimentarius, as well as overseers such as GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative), the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), and SQFI (Safe Quality Food Institute). In … Read more...