- Client
- D&M Packaging
- Sector
- Manufacturing (specialist packaging)
- Outcome
- A QMS that handles investigations, suppliers and complaints, and planning managers can rely on
- What we do
- Continuous development and support of the quality management system, plus planning, scheduling and reporting
The situation
D&M makes specialist packaging to strict quality standards. Growth and more demanding customers made those standards harder to work to, and the software needed to keep pace.
Some problems stood out. Investigations and corrective actions were dragging. Supplier approvals and supplier problems weren’t tracked tightly enough. Complaints and root cause analysis were handled in a patchwork way. And planning production and staffing shifts took a lot of administration.
D&M wanted software that would bend to its requirements as they changed. A package would have meant bending its processes to the software instead.
Quality management
The quality management system has had the most attention. We extended the root cause analysis, and reworked complaint investigations so each one follows the same route from being raised to being closed.
We added supplier approval and non-conformance tracking. Repeated trouble with a supplier now appears as one pattern, where before it looked like five unrelated incidents.
Documents and reports produced by the system were improved too. Several parts of the interface were made simpler after feedback from the people using them all day, which is often where the quickest gains are.
Planning and reporting
The operational side got its own work. That covers production capacity planning, shift rotas and machine scheduling, plus reports on raw material use and better stock visibility and forecasting. Managers now have firm figures to plan with, and less admin to get through.
How it’s delivered
D&M doesn’t wait for an annual release. Changes are built as the business needs them, so the benefit lands while the problem is still current, not months after people have found a way round it.
What changed
Quality control is tighter, and issues get resolved sooner. Suppliers are better managed and easier to trace, corrective actions can be seen, and complaints take less effort to investigate. Planning and forecasting are done with more confidence.
The system follows how D&M works, and it carries on changing with the business.
Get in touch
What’s your system slow to keep up with?
Tell us what the business needs that the software doesn’t yet do. We’ll come back with what it would take and what it would cost.
