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MY Compliance Management
How much is manufacturing compliance really costing you?
Here’s how to find the hidden costs - and cut them
If you work in manufacturing, compliance is part of daily life. In such a highly regulated industry, organisations are subject to a wide array of rules and guidelines, from standard ISO certifications through to PUWER, COSHH and RIDDOR. Regulations are subject to frequent amendments and updates, leaving Safety, Health, Environment and Quality (SHEQ) managers in a constant race to keep their organisation compliant.
Investment in staff training and regular reviews of procedures and policies is well understood but managers are often unaware of just how much this is costing them. The reason for this is that many of these costs are hidden. They arise because of procedural inefficiencies and unnecessary administration. If not addressed, the drop in productivity can add up to thousands of pounds.
Three areas of hidden cost
1. Audits
The longer an auditor is on site, the more it costs your organisation. A standard 9001 audit for a small or medium sized organisation, for example, can cost between £500 and £600 a day. If the information the auditor needs cannot be produced quickly, a higher fee will result. Worse, if the information is incomplete a breach will be declared, incurring fines of thousands of pounds.
2. Administration
The documentation for health and safety compliance is often stored in an assortment of forms. Spreadsheets are still commonly used but so too is paper. Frequently the information is scattered across the organisation and held on different drives, making it impossible for managers to access a reliable, holistic picture of the organisation’s compliance status.
3. Training management
A clear view of training records is essential both for external audits and for ensuring that every team member has the correct certification for their current role. Spot checks can take place at any time, requiring an operative to demonstrate that they have the correct certification for a particular job. If that depends on a wallet full of cards or a piece of paper, there’s a good chance of failing the check and a worker having to down tools until the paperwork can be produced.
The solution
To tackle all of these problems you need to pull the elements of your compliance information together into a single digital system. That includes all the separate spreadsheets and paper files along with any disparate software packages that have been acquired along the way.
Any compliance solution should include not only legal updates but also incident and accident reporting, document management, action tracking and training record management.
It’s also important to be able to use the system remotely. That includes the ability to log incident reports while on site as well as to access documents from any location. One feature we’ve incorporated into MY Compliance Management is the use of QR codes that can be read by a mobile phone. In an audit or spot-check this means immediate access to any policy or procedure.
Holding data centrally in this way and making it accessible remotely means that your organisation can:
- Request digital auditing, cutting the number of days required for each audit
- Gain immediate access to records from any location
- Manage employee certifications and training as part of the wider document management system
- Log incidents in real time, allowing management to take rapid action.
Compliance in practice: Joloda Hydraroll
The challenge
Jolola Hydraroll, a global manufacturer and installer of loading automation and conveyor systems, faced a common challenge: data was scattered across the organisation so there was no central view of the company’s compliance status and finding documentation was difficult. What’s more, its training management system relied on Excel-based matrices that required constant upkeep, with no automated alerts when forklift licences, manual handling or fire safety refreshers were due to lapse.
“My biggest pain point was going into a business and looking at where documentation is being stored. I’ve got all my HR documents over here, all my loader inspections and machines all over the place — it wasn’t really centrally collated. I couldn’t get a handle on how compliant the business was from a health and safety or environmental point of view.” — Ben Cadd, Group QHSE Compliance Manager, Joloda Hydraroll
The solution
Jolola Hydraroll selected MY Compliance Management because of its breadth of functionality within a single, off-the-shelf package combined with easy customisation.
The new system has transformed Jolola Hydraroll’s compliance. Its mobile audit capability allows audits to be conducted anywhere - on the warehouse floor, at remote sites, or during site visits. Any issues with non-conformance are raised in real time and actions are routed directly to the responsible person.
The training management module has replaced Excel-based training matrices with an automated system. Managers now receive targeted reminders for their own team’s training requirements, and a QR-code ‘training passport’ allows operatives to instantly prove competency when challenged on site.
Finally, the reduction in administration has been dramatic. As Ben Cadd, the group QHSE compliance manager, commented:
“The sheer amount of administration time you spend when you haven’t got a system like this - trying to collate all the documents, going to various departments, various different people. That just gets eradicated overnight because everything is stored centrally in one system.”