Regulatory compliance: MES, quality systems excel at pinpointing compliance violations

-- Manufacturing Business Technology, 1/9/2008 10:59:00 AM

Adopting manufacturing execution (MES) and quality management systems (QMS) can give a company a decided advantage when it comes to identifying products or shipments that don’t conform to regulatory requirements. That’s the conclusion drawn from an analysis of more than 650 manufacturing companies conducted by Boston-based Aberdeen Group.

Findings from the analysis are contained in an Aberdeen report titled Compliance and Traceability in Manufacturing. According to Aberdeen’s analysis, best-in-class companies are able to respond to a nonconforming shipment at an average speed of 36 minutes, which is almost two days ahead of their competitors.

Mehul Shah, an Aberdeen Group manufacturing research analyst, says best-in-class performance is differentiated by adoption of MES and QMS capabilities, which act as foundational blocks for building an efficient traceability and genealogy program.

He also says best-in-class manufacturers are linking these applications with enterprise solutions “so information regarding product and process traceability is further linked across the supply chain and with customer orders, enabling these companies to quickly, decisively, and effectively respond to nonconformance incidents."

For the purposes of this study, Aberdeen evaluated and classified manufacturers based on four key performance indicators (KPI):

• On-time delivery;

• Response time to nonconforming shipments;

• First-pass yield; and

• Products manufactured in compliance.

Aberdeen defines best-in-class manufacturers as the top 20 percent of performers in a weighted average across the aforementioned four KPIs. Survey results revealed that best-in-class manufacturers consistently achieve:

• 96 percent on-time delivery;

• 36 minute response time to non-conforming shipments;

• 95 percent first-pass yield; and

• 98 percent of products in compliance.

The Compliance and Traceability in Manufacturing report identifies specific capabilities manufacturers need to adopt to realize the above performance:

• Implement technologies with core track & trace capabilities (such as MES and QMS);

• Invest in interoperability between applications across your own plants and across supply chain nodes; and

• Establish a corrective-action board as a cross-functional team  responsibility for developing and implementing enterprisewide track & trace programs.

To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=4138.

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