MetricStream

STREAMLINING ENTERPRISE QUALITY MANAGEMENT PROCESSES & SYSTEMS IN HIGH GROWTH ENTERPRISES
Overview
The Company is a world leader in unified storage solutions for todays data-intensive enterprise. Its storage solutions include specialized hardware, software and services, providing seamless storage management for open network environments.

CASE STUDY

Challenge
Over the next decade, the Company built a mature and robust quality process, from product development through customer service so that customers can be assured that the Company strives for highest quality in every dimension of its business. As the company continued to lead the way with technology innovations and new product offerings, the established quality infrastructure ensured that all the products would meet the same high levels of excellence. The Company relied on its quality processes to handle and resolve recurring problems that occurred within the Company, at its suppliers and those that were reported by customers and partners. The company had instituted a Root Cause Corrective Action (RCCA) Seven Step Process and terminology that was standardized across its worldwide locations. With the rapid growth in customers, product portfolio, manufacturing sites, supplier base and channels of distribution, the teams starting facing challenges in following the RCCA process due to growing complexity and varied scenarios it had to be applied in. The Company needed an system to implement its RCCA methodology consistently and to ensure that investigation and resolution of quality problems and communication on progress was done in a uniform manner across the company. The Company began to study the market for a quality management system (QMS) that would provide out-of-the-box root-cause corrective and preventive action functionality configured in a multi-step workflow utilizing best-practice based electronic forms and templates. The Company also wanted the solution to provide the option to reconfigure the workflows, forms and templates to adopt its RCCA methodology as well as other industry standard models such as the 5-step Six Sigma DMAIC process and the 8 Disciplines (8D) process. Additionally, the Company wanted a solution that would enable it to improve linkages and communications across its internal groups and sites and with its customers, partners and suppliers.

Customer

A LEADING MANUFACTURER OF UNIFIED STORAGE SYSTEMS

Benefits
Accelerated quality processes, investigations, approvals, implementations and closure cycles with a consistent, streamlined, and paperless workflow Enterprise-wide visibility and real-time access to quality data and issues for effective status tracking and trend analysis with measurable performance metrics Incorporated best practices as appropriate and ability to re-engineer business processes as needed to improve efficiency and compliance Web-based solution for the extended enterprise supporting users at multiple sites across the world Reduced paperwork and elimination of redundant point applications and systems

Solution
The Company selected MetricStream quality management solution as it provided a closed-loop enterprise-wide corrective and preventive action management system supporting root cause analysis functionality to rapid identify, initiate, address, contain and resolve quality and compliance issues within an enterprise as well as with its partners and suppliers. Moreover, MetricStream also provided tremendous flexibility in how the solution could be configured and applied to a number of different scenarios where quality processes had to be implemented. While the system provided a set of complete pre-defined, standard, role-based workflows, it also provided the ability to easily reconfigure the workflows based on business rules linked to a variety of criteria such as issue type, origin, classification, etc. The solution has been implemented to support unique data capture requirements, investigative needs and information routing rules for 11 different process groups at including Customer Facing Tools, Hardware Engineering, Software Interoperability Engineering, Logistics, Product Quality, Support Engineering, Support Operations, Technical Support Center, Operations and Test Engineering and Worldwide Sales Operations. Across these groups, a consistent CAPA process is followed that goes through the stages of issues initiation, issue acceptance or rejection, project planning, interim containment action, collection and analysis of data, root cause analysis, corrective and preventive action planning, implementation and effectiveness follow-up. The MetricStream solution also provides multi-level role-based access controls essential for companies that have multiple locations, product lines and business units. The role-activity mappings clearly define the privileges associated with different roles including roles played by external users such as suppliers.

MetricStream
Why MetricStream
Embedded best practices for the hi-tech industry ready to be used out-of-the-box Flexibility to meet specific requirements and adapt to changing business processes Powerful reporting with executive dashboards for analytics and trending Web-based architecture that can be extended to partners and suppliers for collaboration

Given the different types of process groups and scenarios in which the MetricStream solution is used, the Company had the need for equally diverse set reports for meaningful data analysis. The data analytics needed by the Logistics groups are totally different from the reporting needs of the Support Engineering or Hardware Engineering groups. This was a key area where MetricStreams built in reporting engine provided tremendous value to the Company. In addition to the standard reports, MetricStream has provided over 50 additional reports and dashboards specially designed for each groups unique needs. In addition, the business users are also trained on the web-based Reports Wizard that allows them to create custom queries and reports that can be generated on an ad hoc. The users selects the data set which is the source of data for the report and go through a series of screens to define which columns to display, the formatting, sorting and grouping of the columns, the filters and coloring conditions, the report type and other options to easily create reports for their individual needs. For the Company, risks from non-compliance with quality standards include loss of key customers, line shutdowns and higher internal manufacturing costs. The Company has demonstrated how high growth manufacturing companies in the hitech sector can succeed in ensuring compliance with the required regulations, mandates, standards and policies by streamlining processes and investing in technology.

Role
Standard Users Super Users RCCA Governance Leader RCCA ProgramLeader IT Administrator Assignee Initiator Accepter/Rejecter RCCA Team Member External Supplier Standard Users External Supplier Super Users External Partner Standard Users External Partner Super Users

Initiate CAPA
X X X X X

Approve CAPA

Update CAPA
X

X X

X X X

X X X X X X

Role-Activity Mappings

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