Advancing Quality Beyond Compliance: How to manage quality control for strategic gain

Highly regulated industries such as food and beverage, medical device manufacturing, cannabis, and nutraceuticals all meticulously test and track their products to ensure compliance with various state and federal agencies. Non-compliance can result in steep fines, operating restrictions, and even criminal penalties including jail time. Compliance is vital within these industries; however, compliance is not the only reason businesses should reach for a higher standard of quality.

There is a strong case to be made that investments in technology that improve quality control not only help maintain and demonstrate compliance, but also build a culture of quality that permeates the organization and drives strategic gains.

Integrating quality management

When we talk about quality testing, we’re talking about product traceability. Quality tests are typically performed on lots or individual serialized products. It’s necessary then, for regulated companies to track a specific product or batch of products throughout the entire lifecycle — including the components or ingredients that go into each product. Traditional enterprise resource planning (ERP) software handles product traceability well, but typically isn’t optimized to incorporate the quality control documentation required by highly regulated industries.

To manage the additional quality control measures, many businesses rely on spreadsheets, legacy third-party applications, or separate, non-integrated programs. These workarounds pose a danger to products by creating room for error in a company’s quality efforts. When these errors are introduced into the supply chain, they can be difficult to identify and impossible to track.

With an integrated quality control application, all product data is stored in a single database. Unifying data improves an organization's ability to maintain and advance ...