Project Type
Developing and maintaining integrated management systems: The quality management system ISO 9001 and the laboratory management system ISO 17025
The problem
The company’s management systems had been developed as completely separate and independent “clause based” systems, both of which meet the requirements of the quality management system (ISO 9001) & the laboratory management system (ISO 17025).
As a result, the systems were cumbersome, duplicated, detached from the day-to-day running of the business and did not properly reflect the way in which the company operated. They added little value.
The client
Labcare is niche company selling, servicing and repairing DNA laboratory equipment at customer sites across the UK and in its purpose-built workshop.
The approach and the solution
The objective of the intervention was to re-develop the existing systems around the activities the company actually undertook:
• Marketing and selling products and services
• Managing service and planned preventive maintenance
o In the workshop or in the field
• Managing breakdowns and unplanned repairs
o In the workshop or in the field
The senior team were then involved in:
• Sketching out a top-level Core Activity Map™ showing the flow of activities undertaken; “how the work worked”
• Developing lower level process flowcharts for the key delivery operations
• Aligning key performance indicators to the core activities
• Marrying existing documentation to the core activities in order to identify overlap, duplication and gaps
• Eliminating the overlap and duplication
• Plugging the gaps identified
The outcome
• There is now one integrated management system for both standards that reflects the way in which the Labcare work works.
• There is better buy in as the system reflects the company processes procedures and uses the company’s language and terminology.
• The system has linked processes to KPI’s in order to drive quantifiable change and improvement.
• The measurement systems, for both the internal manufacturing capability and the associated supply chain, were radically overhauled to bring them into alignment with the different customers’ requirements.