5 Quality Control Mistakes You Can Avoid Through Process Automation

‍

The Quality Control process must be strictly followed to ensure products and services meet or exceed quality standards. If Quality Control is neglected, some failures can interfere with the quality of the final product or the service offered to the consumer, generating very negative impacts that directly affect the company's revenues, such as product recalls, loss of customers and poor brand reputation.

To keep customers happy and avoid a catastrophic scenario like quality defects, out-of-spec results, not performing major product testing during inspection, and inaccurate reporting, there are a few things you'll need to pay attention to. In this blog, we’re highlighting five common Quality Control mistakes you need to watch out for:

1) Lack of real-time data for faster and more assertive decision-making

Although we live in the era of Digital Transformation, many QA processes are still done on paper. This means that the data collected by someone working with paper and a clipboard is not accessible to everyone in real-time. The information will have to be transcribed later into Excel or the system for use.

In this way, not only is the data not actionable by the team, but delays in decision-making are potentially costly due to poor process management. Ideally, you should work with an automated system that offers real-time KPIs, predictively warning of deviations and failures found.

Suggested content: The Role of LIMS in Driving Digital Transformation

2) Errors associated with manual data transcription

Managing on paper and even on control sheets allows a greater probability of transcription errors. This is because typos occur between operators, and even if error rates are small, if they are repeated, they can result in loss and waste. Manual reports take longer to complete, and decision-makers end up not having the information they need in a timely manner. Not to mention, when data is collected manually, it is quite subject to human error.

3) Not guaranteeing the traceability of the process

Process traceability ensures quality compliance, prevents product recalls, and better manages customer relationships. Therefore, it is a good practice to incorporate traceability into your operations, especially for more complex products. By tracing the origins of your components, you have a better chance of discovering any raw materials that may have been compromised before being used in production. It is more economical and safer to prevent an error from occurring before or during production than to try to correct non-conformity after shipping the product.

Did you know? With Confience myLIMS, it is possible to obtain traceability from the beginning to the end of the production process, which helps to proactively identify potential bottlenecks.  

4) Focusing on damage control rather than proper preventative solutions

Managing paper data often creates many problems for the quality process. Unfortunately, when too much emphasis is placed on damage control, even the best quality process can be compromised. When looking for good preventative solutions, such as a robust LIMS system that acts preventively, you'll find that there are fewer fires to put out (and more time to spend on all those other quality goals).

The lack of real-time data, traceability and management reports do not provide the visibility and security necessary for 360º quality control. Complex manufacturing operations, made up of multiple locations and diverse processes, can be seen in their productivity significantly decreased by excessive manual processes.

5) Total management of quality control processes through management indicators and reports based on historical data

Key performance indicators (KPIs) form an important part of the information needed to determine and explain how a company will progress toward achieving its business vision, goals, and objectives. KPIs help the company know if it is going in the right direction and, if not, what changes need to be made to correct course. KPIs give us the data we need to run a successful business.

KPIs simplify performance management, allowing access and exchange of information from different areas, ensuring transparency in management. This transparent communication is critical to see if all areas are moving toward the same goal. And with management dashboards and reports with real-time data (rather than this data being "hidden and separated into multiple spreadsheets") management and decision-making are not based on assumptions and "guesswork," but on reliable data from the entire quality process.

Insight: With myLIMS it is possible to obtain quality indicators in real time, helping to monitor and evaluate the processes of a business. The capture and storage of data from a variety of sources, equipment, raw analysis data, results of analysis of raw materials, process points and finished products, contamination monitoring, among others, provide great opportunities for the analysis and extraction of information to support management, since the data obtained has already been processed and reflects the scenario to be monitored.

Learn more: LIMS Quality Indicators: Ensure Precision in Your Lab

Conclusion

In many industries, quality control starts with reviewing—and often signing off on—a flood of analysis results. This critical task falls to highly qualified, and costly, technical managers. But with their days packed and pressure mounting, these professionals often postpone reviews until the end of a long, stressful day—when fatigue can lead to costly mistakes.

Normally, the communication of the results of the analyses to the other areas of the company occurs by registering the results in electronic spreadsheets on the web, e-mail or even by telephone. Such a way of sharing results is weak and subject to failures, as well as the loss of time of professionals in the laboratory and other areas of the company.

In a standard process, manual and repetitive activities take up a large part of the day-to-day life of all professionals, but in the case of technical managers it is even more serious: by not having automatic tools for the analysis of results, such activity wastes the valuable time of these qualified professionals who could contribute to the improvement of analytical processes. reducing costs and increasing the reliability of the analysis results delivered to the areas.

Learn More: Impacts of a Successful LIMS Implementation - A Customer Journey

With myLIMS, it is possible to obtain fast and reliable results that are essential in the competitive scenario of Industry 4.0 and the basis for good decisions, cost and risk reduction. Therefore, the correct integration between quality control laboratories and other areas of the industry, creating 360º management, has become a competitive need for companies and can no longer be ignored.

Learn more: How to Justify the Purchase of a LIMS

myLIMS will help in the digital transformation of your QA lab management. Contact us.

‍