Automated process management systems are the workhorses of every modern company. These systems guide operations and improve quality and efficiency. Hidden away in the core of each automated process management system lies the unsung yet essential electronic form. You can avoid quality management system (QMS) form design mistakes by following some proven guidelines.
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Forms are the arteries that pump information to the heart of your QMS. They do this in the following ways:
Workflow: Completed form responses will trigger actions and workflows, including approval processes.
Tasks: Forms create automated tasks for responsible parties while managing user permissions.
Capture: Forms capture required substantiation including documents, photos, signatures, and time stamps.
Form design automates the processes of your QMS. Mistakes can require extensive reworking and render a system ineffective. Let’s look at five key mistakes often made when designing electronic forms and how things can be done better.
Mistake 1: Mirroring paper forms
The first mistake to avoid when designing electronic forms is to copy legacy forms. While paper forms are (hopefully) long gone in most modern businesses, existing semiautomated forms are most likely derivatives of paper forms and flowchart artifacts. Ensure that electronic forms are evaluated to identify and exclude unnecessary, process-stalling attributes carried over from legacy systems.
Companies with established, effective automated QMS have achieved success though evolution. They document legacy processes to glean what still works and where gaps and holdups exist. They don’t design forms based on “the way we’ve always done it,” but based on the most efficient processes for today’s good manufacturing practices (GMP) environment. Typically, this is done in collaboration with a QMS provider that brings extensive expertise in form design and process management.
Mistake 2: Overuse of approvals and signatures
The second mistake to avoid when designing electronic forms is overusing approvals and signatures. Nearly all automated processes incorporate multiple approval and signature steps. Eliminate the “need to know” in the approval process and evolve to the streamlined efficiency mindset.
Too many approvers create bottlenecks within any process. Approval steps should ensure that the right people—essential employees—are involved at the right time. For example, if a corrective action requires a design change, an engineering manager may be required to evaluate the proposed change before it can be implemented. The entire design team doesn’t need to approve it (you can inform them via email or notification).
Mistake 3: Collecting the wrong information at the wrong time
The main job of an electronic form is to collect information. So, what’s the wrong information? It’s either too much information, not enough information, irrelevant information, or even requesting information at the wrong time.
Users get frustrated when they are asked to enter unnecessary data. Electronic forms should be sensibly designed to route documents by using an intelligent workflow that can automatically show or hide fields to specific users and groups.
In summary, create fields that collect the right information at the right time. Focus on efficiently automating quality processes, not information overload and duplication.
Mistake 4: Creating form silos
No form is an island. Forms are one part of an integrated system of processes that are interconnected in a QMS. Complaint handling may be connected to corrective action systems. Document management systems get connected to change management systems.
Therefore, connect information gathered from previous steps to subsequent steps. Here again, we emphasize the importance of systematic design of your automation strategy. For example, if a corrective action form is launched from a problem tracking form, all previously collected data should be prefilled on the problem tracking form (see mistake No. 3). Linking processes and pre-populating form fields saves time, eliminates errors, and increases productivity.
Here’s another tip: Ensure that all form fields have the same naming conventions across processes. Remember, each form is a part of a larger system.
Mistake 5: Failure to adapt
Automated quality management is not static. You can’t set it and forget it. Businesses with effective QMS adapt to a constantly changing business environment. As business evolves, so too must its process-automation needs and, by extension, its electronic forms. Just because a form is designed and released doesn’t mean it can’t or shouldn’t be improved.
As a best practice, seek feedback from users. Their suggestions are often the best data source for guiding form improvements. In addition, solicit feedback from managers who are using the data to make decisions. For example, if supplier qualification is based on delivered product quality, it is important to ensure that problem-tracking forms allow you to trace product problems back to the correct supplier. Better yet, include employees and managers as part of your implementation team.
Conclusions
Good forms ensure good processes. Forms are the foundation of an effective electronic QMS. They are where automated business processes meet people. Therefore, to ensure that business processes are optimized, forms must be designed with an evolutionary mindset. Forms should streamline approvals and data collection and be configurable to adapt to changing and increasing quality processes. Finally, remember to monitor feedback from users and managers to keep forms up to date and relevant.
Comments
Electronic Forms
Our e-forms not only duplicate old paper forms but we are still filling out the paper forms because we are not allowed to use e-signatures. Worse, we are collecting duplicate data on four different e-forms (that could be automatically imported from an existing database) that is then being minutely checked by at least three different levels of management for discrepancies so that employees can be identified for punishment for falsification of their reports everytime they make a typographical error.
We now spend at least one extra day per month filing out the forms and double checking the forms for interform consistency while our Section Chief spends a day double checking everyone's forms to ensure there are no errors for management to find. All this so that management can track our "productivity" with a time-motion chart.
Your state government at work.
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