Great to have had an enjoyable day this week with our external quality management auditors, and to have been approved for another year as a high quality company under the ISO 9001 framework.

Of course it is doubly interesting to have achieved this as we use our own framework and software products to assist us in our quality control. Specifically we use

• Version control for our documents
• Policy manager for all of our policies and procedures
• We don’t use bookshelf, as we have only one brand and a reasonable number of policies that can be managed by PDF and application files
• Audit manager for all of our internal audits
• Business Process Manager for many processes that we use and our auditors need to inspect – such as complaints procedures and product change requests.

So it’s a great experience for us to be monitored and inspected as users of our own software.

I am pleased to say that we enjoyed the day – we certainly felt that our own software is very much helping us to improve our quality and our auditors agreed!

Intranet-Extranet, Prod-Process, Prod-Quality, The Framework

I have decided to write a series of posts around how we can map the potential contribution of Claromentis as a web platform for your business, against the original components of a value chain as defined by Michael Porter in 1985.

To refresh our memories Mr. Porter described the following Support Activities :

• Infrastructure – Finance, planning etc
• HR Management
• Technology Development – R&D
• Procurement

And the following Primary Activities :

• Inbound Logistics
• Operations
• Outbound Logistics
• Marketing and Sales
• After Sales Service

As the significant building blocks for a value chain, they define the activity in a delivery system which creates margin for the owners of a business.

Back in the mid 80s the main approaches were looking at each of these components, and either seeking to drive down costs without compromising quality – or trying to improve quality without increasing costs.

In general terms the former led to outsourcing and the latter to total quality management.

These early models are still valid, and with technology moving so fast and web platforms like Claromentis able to contribute to so many of these areas, I thought it would be interesting to post on our recent experience in each of them.

My first one this week is likely to be R&D – as it is very much on my mind with our new Innovate 1.1 release.

Thanks also to a strategy handout from Roger Martin-Fagg, provided by Vistage – for prompting the idea of this series of posts.

Intranet-Extranet, Prod-Intranet, Prod-Quality, Prod-Sales, The Framework business model, Claromentis, value, web platform

A short summary of our products in the Intranet, Business Process, Quality management and Document Management space – and the fact that customers are increasingly selecting more than one product line to create an embracing web platform for their businesses.

All comments welcome!

Intranet-Extranet, Prod-Content, Prod-Document, Prod-Intranet, Prod-Process, Prod-Quality, Products, Solutions products

In this informal interview I try to explain what Claromentis offers for the management of Policies and Procedures

I try to summarize what different types of companies might be looking for, and what solutions we offer in both our standard intranet product and in our Quality Management suite – specifically Policy Manager and Policy Publisher.

Please let me know if you like this kind of video post and format!

Intranet-Extranet, Prod-Quality policies and procedures, quality management software

As Claromentis continues to expand the range and depth of our Quality Management solutions, new clients are confirming our strong belief that Quality Management applications should indeed be part of the web platform that supports a business – previously known as ‘the intranet’ – and not yet another island of data and processes.

This is partly of the increasing power of web applications which means  clients increasingly work in the intranet, rather than just look for accurate information.

In addition, again and again we find that certain types of information are required for different applications, and at different levels of detail, across the business. The only central place such data should be stored is the company web platform – accessible to all web apps that need them.

An example at a meeting today was Training Records. These are  fundamental for HR, who needed to track the training that staff undertook over time. But it was also required for Health and Safety – where people could review certificates and check that training was in place to meet legislation.

As if that was not enough training records are fundamental to Quality Management – as the level of expertise of an employee has a direct level on the supporting documentation to get a task done to acceptable quality.

Such a simple concept of training records needed to be available for different reasons, and to different staff with different permissions – they needed to be updatable by some applications and readable by others.

Simply put such fundamental data should only be centrally managed, all software companies use is web based – or should be – and the corporate web platform is where that data needs to be because that is increasingly where the work actually gets done.

Intranet-Extranet, Prod-Intranet, Prod-Quality intranet software, quality management software, training, training records

Good ‘Policy & Procedure’ management has always been critical for organisations affected by government legislation. But for most people reading this blog, I’m sure you’ll agree that it is bland at best. Most are created in an editor such as Microsoft Word with little thought to layout and general design. A conversion to PDF and saved into a shared drive normally completes the process, where they sit with very little use until their review the following year (or as dictated by the the relevant standards).

But here at Claromentis, we’ve created a solution that transforms the way Policies & Procedures will be viewed by an organisation. We’ve just started a project for a large Australian government department, which has included:

1. converting all Microsoft Word based policies & procedures, and converting them into HTML
2. implementing flip style reading (think ipad style readability)
3. easy statistical figures regarding who has and hasn’t read a certain policy
4. simple chapter navigation
5. integrated discussion pages and wikis
6. easy searching
7. integrated electronic forms
8. document version control and linking

All these features (and many more) will ensure that  policies and procedures become a true business asset, rather than something required just to tick a government approval standard.

Prod-Quality policies, policies and procedures, procedures

This 4 minute video blog shows adding a new draft policy to Claromentis Policy Manager, one of the 3 applications in our Quality Management Solution.

This is a first in a planned series of short videos on the use of the Claromentis Quality Manager Solution to improve compliance and gain efficiencies when working in a quality controlled environment. If you have any feedback or content requests please just let us know.

Intranet-Extranet, Prod-Quality ISO18001, ISO9001, policies and procedures, quality management software

Where your primary requirement is Quality Management Software we offer a portal framework – which provides information management, access, permissions, user management and the interface customized for your company – combined with several QM solutions focusing on Audits and Policies.

Entry solution

Smaller companies can use Process Manager for controlling audits and the document management solution in our permission based framework for managing version controlled Policies.

This provides a low cost entry solution for companies that need an appropriate environment for compliance, but where the size of the policy information is not large and audit requirements are not extensive – perhaps only one external audit a year of only one site.

SME solution

If policy life cycle management is required, or the number of policies is substantial -  the Policy Manager product is the preferred solution.

Policy Manager allows specialist teams to participate in consultancy and ratification phases before policies are distributed. It provides specialist views of policies and procedures to the end users – including lists, category views and A-Z views. Master lists of policies are managed in the Administration Panel.

As a guide any company that has dedicated Quality Management staff, but no Audit Managers, will find this solution set appropriate. For this reason SME companies can still manage smaller scale audits using Process Manager.

Corporate Solution.

If a company has a requirement to run multiple audits across multiple sites, or to track none-conformancies against specific clauses in any legislation such as ISO 9001:2008 and ISO:18001, then the Audit Manager product should be used working seamlessly with Policy Manager.

Audit Manager can work with any external legislation as well as bespoke audits, with multiple audit teams and sites and offers a complete solution including root cause analysis.

Enterprise Solution.

For larger companies with thousands of procedures, perhaps across multiple business units, Policy Publisher can be used either alongside Policy Manager – or as a replacement solution.

Policy publisher replaces completely the need for application files such as PDFs to contain policy information. Instead the entire information set is moved online.

The principle advantages are :

•    Business Unit branding is applied by the framework, so there is no need for multiple copies just to present information in different branding.

•    Polices and procedures can automatically update themselves when included information changes.

•    Online flowcharts that hotlink to other supporting URLs can be used to create a genuine online quality management system.

Summary

The Claromentis Quality Management Solution offers a complete range of benefits to ensure that your company can commit to improving quality and compliance with complete confidence that the supporting infrastructure is in place.

Further Information

Product Data sheets are available on our site :

Overview of our Quality Management solution
Policy Manager
Audit Manager
Policy Publisher

In addition there is an online tour of Policy Manager here

Next Steps

We would welcome a chance to understand your requirements, and if we offer a Quality Management system that matches your needs we provide individual webinars and site visits to further demonstrate our approach.

Prod-Quality ISO18001, ISO9001, QMS, quality management software

Ekurhuleni West College (EWC) one of the leading Further Education and Training Institution in South Africa. Spread across 6 geographical location with 550 numbers of staff, EWC offers training and development programme in Engineering, Business, ICT, Finance and Community Services

It is the second Public FET Collegae in Gauteng to obtain SO 9001: 2000 certificate from the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) in 2008.

In order to continue maintaining high standards EWC has chosen Claromentis Quality Manager solution. They have developed a Quality Management web portal, which can be easily accessed from all campus location, and it has become a one-stop-shop system to find up-to-date policies and procedures. EWC also uses InfoCapture application to track and manage non-conformances.

Read more about Quality Management  Solution or take the tour

Intranet-Extranet, Prod-Quality, Solutions Case Study, ISO9001, quality management software

Prod-Quality, Products, Resources-Technical