Download Dairy Crest case study - ProcessPower Solutions Inc.

Gael's Q-Pulse helps Dairy Crest streamline their
QMS processes
Organization
Dairy Crest
Sector
Food and Drink
Solution
Q-Pulse Enterprise Edition
Success
Now paperless and Q-Pulse helps manage Food Safety and Quality Management
Dairy Crest is the UK’s leading chilled dairy foods company, manufacturing a range of everyday
dairy brands including Cathedral City cheddar, Clover spread, Country Life butter and Frijj, the top
selling flavoured milk drink.
The company, based in Surrey, United Kingdom, also supplies milk to retailers throughout the
country, from major supermarkets to village stores. Dairy Crest deliver milk - and much more - to
thousands of homes across England and Wales every day.
The Challenge
With 15 sites around the country, establishing group-wide document control within Dairy Crest had
proved labour and resource intensive, and, at the same time, posed a potential risk to processes
elsewhere in the business.
At a site level, costly and time-consuming manual document control procedures were producing
huge volumes of paper-based documents that were proving increasingly difficult, if not impossible to
manage. Manual change control processes also required considerable time and effort in identifying
staff training needs and maintaining records, which could lead to gaps developing in staff
competencies.
At a group level, manually distributing documents to multiple staff, potentially at any or all of the
group’s sites, was causing delays in the document approval cycle. Management were also unable to
identify where bottlenecks were developing in the cycle, further lengthening delays in approving
business-critical documents that included product specifications and artwork.
As the UK’s leading manufacturer of dairy products, Dairy Crest depend on their network of national
and international suppliers. Maintaining visibility of issues throughout the supply chain is therefore
crucial in managing risk and maintaining real business advantage within the highly competitive UK
food market.
To set up a supplier audit programme that was based on real business risk, the Quality department
needed to be able to carry out a central review of performance across all supplier sites. Purchasing
also needed the same performance information during contract renewal negotiations with suppliers.
Each of the company’s sites needed visibility on issues to make sure that corrective and preventive
actions could be completed within agreed deadlines. Each site also needed to be able to control
their documents and other site specific information, including audit and staff competence
management.
Without visibility, the company was unable to track performance at any of their supplier sites. In
addition, management were unable to establish an accurate or up-to-date register of suppliers’
certification to standards such as BRC, which was having a negative impact on contract renewal
negotiations.
At a group level, in centralising the management of controlled documents and supplier performance,
management at Dairy Crest recognised an enterprise compliance management solution as a viable
alternative to manual and paper-based management systems.
The Solution
By enabling Dairy Crest to extend their quality management system (QMS) throughout the supply
chain, Q-Pulse Enterprise Edition from Gael has given Dairy Crest group-wide access to documents,
as well as visibility of issues at each of the company’s sites and at each supplier site, on demand.
At a group level, with a single central repository for documentation that relevant staff can access on
demand, management can make sure that controlled documents are accessible, accurate and up-todate across the group.
With a streamlined electronic process for managing all aspects of access and change control, QPulse has enabled Dairy Crest to significantly reduce document approval cycle times across all of
the company’s sites. In addition, during the revision of controlled documents, Q-Pulse has enabled
the company to automatically identify retraining needs, preventing gaps in staff competency.
At a site level, as well as enabling faster approvals, automated document control procedures are
now helping, rather than hindering Dairy Crest’s business. By reducing the volume of paper-based
documents, Q-Pulse has enabled the company’s national distribution centre in Nuneaton to eliminate
paper from the QMS to become a paperless site.
The Result
At Dairy Crest, the main benefit of implementing Q-Pulse has been centralised group document
control and supplier performance monitoring across all sites. As Technical Manager at Dairy Crest’s
national distribution centre in Nuneaton, Heidi Gough is responsible for the company’s Food Safety
and Quality Management System (FSQMS).
She said: “I’ve noticed several benefits in using an electronic FSQMS, for example, being able to link
in audits to the part of the standard I’m auditing against. I also like being able to set up my audit
scope to automatically flag the correct sections of BRC and other standards that we’re working to.
“Having visibility of corrective and preventive actions is great, as it means that I can see everything
that’s going on, or isn’t going on, as the case may be. And with electronic non-conformances and
corrective action reports, Q-Pulse can chase the completion of actions against our deadlines.
“From experience I know it’s easy to forget to review documents, but having an automated reminder
makes it so much easier, which will be a big benefit to us,’ explains Heidi. “When approvals are
assigned to a department on paper, it’s up to a person to chase them, but with Q-Pulse doing the
chasing for you, it’s very easy to see who is – and who isn’t – closing out their actions.”
“Q-Pulse is an exceptionally useful tool for managing our FSQMS,” says Sarah Deane, Regulatory
Manager at Dairy Crest Group Technical. “We’ve already embarked on building in our competence
framework into the system so we can readily manage training renewals and also identify retraining
needs when our controlled documents are revised.”