Quality management has taken on a central role in the structuring of companies in all sectors. To consolidate this quality approach, more and more quality departments are now equipping themselves with digitalized solutions. Companies in the energy sector are no exception, whether they manufacture, operate or maintain energy production facilities. Compliance is essential for nuclear facilities, for obvious safety reasons, but all other forms of energy production have an interest in working towards continuous improvement, by involving all stakeholders in the process.
The main quality management systems (QMS) are organized around two main concepts: non-quality events and actions taken to resolve problems.
Quality events can take many forms. They are often non-conformities (sometimes also referred to as deviations), i.e. incidents or breaches of procedures which formalize the way in which activities are to be carried out. This type of event is generally reported directly after the non-conformity has been observed, and documented with the elements needed to characterize it (date of occurrence, location, procedure followed, description of the situation, etc.). If the declaration is made after a delay, it may also be useful to quantify the delay in order to reduce it.
For activities more geared towards the maintenance of energy production facilities, there are also quality events of the “control” type. These are scheduled at regular intervals and serve to trace the results (compliant or non-compliant) of control operations carried out on production sites and equipment. Lastly, “evaluation” events can be opened to assess the work of service companies commissioned to carry out certain tasks. In this case, the quality of the work carried out is graded according to an evaluation grid, and this information can be reused for future subcontracting requirements.
All these events can give rise to corrective or preventive actions (CAPA) aimed at resolving the discrepancies observed. Action management methods of varying degrees of sophistication can be implemented. The simplest simply define the nature of the actions to be carried out, a responsible party, a deadline and objectives, and ensure traceability of their implementation and verification of their effectiveness. The most complex are based on analysis and problem-solving methods (8D, for example) to investigate and trace the root causes of quality events. In this case, the tool acts as a guide, enabling the various stages of the method to be carried out correctly.
Depending on the context, data relating to events and actions can be entered into the QMS in different ways. The most natural is to enter this data directly into the tool from a computer. However, this is not always possible, as some control operations have to be carried out on site, sometimes in areas not covered by network access. In such cases, data capture is best carried out using media that enable a “disconnected” mode. These may be Excel templates generated by the tool, to be filled in via a laptop PC on site and then imported on return from inspection, or mobile applications usable on a tablet or smartphone, whose content is synchronized on return to an area with network coverage.
Once events and actions have been declared, the QMS provides functions for monitoring them. Dashboards, preferably customizable, enable you to quickly obtain a summary of events in progress, or of the actions you are responsible for.
For each event or action, a workflow is generally set up to guide the user through the expected processing actions in the right order. At the same time, this functionality ensures traceability of the workflow steps, enabling actions to be justified a posteriori to an authority in charge of controlling them.
The digitization of quality activities offers a huge advantage in terms of search over previous media, whether paper or traditional office tools. The application can be equipped with modules for searching for events or actions based on any information concerning them. These searches can be carried out via user-friendly interfaces, with users simply having to answer a series of questions to obtain a list of results corresponding to their search in real time. Search results can then be accessed to view details, or even exported in Excel format for transmission or post-processing.
Last but not least, the digitized solution enables much simpler data processing. Indicators are systematically expected by quality departments, in order to provide managers with activity reports (number of quality events declared per month, criticality or typology of events, etc.) or to ensure operational monitoring of activity (number of actions in progress, average processing time, etc.).
The QMS offers several possibilities for producing these indicators. For example, they can be constructed and visualized directly within the application if it has a dedicated module. Intuitive graphical representations (histograms, pie charts, curves) facilitate overview and decision-making. External solutions can also be used, whether to extract data into customizable Excel masks, or to make data available to Business Intelligence tools dedicated to the production of indicators (QlikView, Power BI…).
Although QMS are not specific to the energy sector, it is characterized by the diversity of non-quality issues that can arise, the importance of traceability of information, and the high mobility of those involved in the business.
For more information, please contact us to discuss your requirements. Our quality experts can answer any questions you may have about setting up quality indicators with QMS.
