Along with quality assurance and quality control, quality management is another vital part of the quality process. Quality management isn’t just a fad or trend in the industry; it’s been around since the early 1900s and has improved steadily over time to include things like continuous improvement, lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, and more.
A systematic approach to managing quality has been with us since the beginning of the 90s. Here’s how it evolved in recent years, beginning in the early 1990s.
“Paper-based” QMS
Evolving from paper and physical folders to a combination of Excel/Sheets and e-forms (Office or G Suite).
Still common in smaller companies that want to avoid the costs of dedicated software solutions or are concerned with the complexities of implementing an electronic solution.
On-prem eQMS
Digital solutions for managing quality were introduced in the early 1990s, a couple of years after ISO 9000 was first published. Among the first companies to introduce eQMS’ are MasterControl, Sparta-Systems (now part of Honeywell), ETQ (now part of Hexagon), and Pilgrim (now part of IQVIA).
They included workflow management capabilities and a couple of years later added an audit trail to make them compliant with the final part 11 regulations. Their focus was core QMS processes, some offered integrated doc management.
Implementing such solutions required heavy involvement of internal IT staff on server installs, database optimization, hardware management, OS/DB upgrades, security, backups, and more. In many cases, it was too complex for smaller organizations.
In addition, it also required to use expensive consultancy services just to start and use these systems and for every introduced change or improvement.
Cloud eQMS
Around 2011 cloud-based eQMS’ emerged, the benefits of SaaS (Software as a Service) are well known, and many companies are making the transition from on-prem software to cloud-based solutions. This transition helped make eQMS’ affordable to smaller companies, who couldn’t bear the IT-related costs on-prem eQMS’ entail.
But, one thing that didn’t change enough is the implementation-related costs. Yes, installations and upgrades are more straightforward, but how about the implementation?
For a small company to implement a system tailored to its needs is still very expensive since the existing solutions are still very complex when it comes to tailoring them to specific needs. Most companies offering cloud QMS solutions offer best practice templates to lower the implementation costs but usually that comes on the expense of having a system that is tailored to a company needs and have to adapt themselves to the system.
Simploud, a new category in regulated cloud-based solutions
Simploud brings an entirely new approach to cloud QMS. No matter what changes you need to apply to the best practices or what quality processes you’d like to use – everything is included in the subscription cost making it the only pure SaaS solution.
Field-proven software that enables businesses to tailor their eQMS to their exact needs with no implementation fees. So, the new reality is that a company with 5 employees can design their processes exactly as they need them and tune them as they grow so it’s always aligned to their needs.
