Quality Applications

QSI Compliance Management Software Benefits n Automatically numbers documents and controls revisions n Streamlines audit preparations www.qualitysys.com

Software Helps Synthetics Company Achieve ISO 9000 Registration
QSI Compliance Management Software

For Goodyear Chemical, the largest producer of synthetic rubber in the world, maintaining documents isn't as simple as keeping a tidy filing cabinet. Goodyear Chemical, which supplies specialty polymer and rubber chemicals for use in a diverse range of products (including golf balls, latex gloves, paints, automotive belts and hoses), employs 2,300 people worldwide. Understandably, the Akron, Ohio-based company needed a better way to access, exchange and control documentation at all of its sites. It found the solution in a software package from QSI.

 Prior to purchasing compliance management software, Goodyear Chemical used a mainframe-based system for the majority of its documentation needs. Employees manually distributed documents for approvals, changes and sign-offs. Associates had to produce forms, quality manuals and other important documentation using word-processing and spreadsheet applications.

 All documentation was stored on Goodyear's mainframe system and on various personal computers at several different locations. "There were times when our documentation would simply fall through the cracks," says Joe Croston, Goodyear Chemical's manager of quality systems. "We decided it was time for employees to work on a single system worldwide." This meant eliminating the dependency on the mainframe computer. The ideal system would allow users to automatically update Web-posted specifications directly from the databases to the company Web site as changes occurred.

 Goodyear Chemical had eight sites requiring compliance management software. Three of them were previously ISO 9001-certified, and Goodyear's plans were to achieve ISO 9001 certification for the remaining five sites under a multiple site

certification. "We needed to plan for a well-documented quality assurance program if we were going to achieve these certifications in a systematic, integrated and cost-effective manner," Croston explains.

 Goodyear Chemical set specific goals that would influence the selection criteria for its compliance management software. These goals were to produce a customized quality management system, eliminate all mainframe documentation activities, decrease the cost and time needed to prepare for an audit, achieve real-time distribution and sharing of documents, and create a paperless system.

 Goodyear had previously evaluated different compliance management software packages for its tire division. "Due to the success of QSI's software in our tire division, we decided to bring the software to our chemical division," explains Jack Hill, manager of office systems technology. According to Hill, the strategic advantages of QSI's software included the flexibility to customize the software, automated escalations and the control to turn them on and off, automated preventive and corrective actions, the capability to tie documents together, automated document numbering, and version control.

 "In direct auditing costs alone, QSI's compliance management software has paid us back in less than a year, and many times in error prevention," says Croston. "In addition, it has reduced our total audit costs by 50 percent while expanding our certification from three sites to eight." Within six months of introducing QSI's software, Goodyear Chemical eliminated its dependency on its costly mainframe system for all of its documentation needs. "This methodology has improved our workflow system significantly with regard to time and efficiency," maintains Croston.