CASE STUDY
How HM. Clause used Icologiq Elements to improve the Quality Management of seeds by transitioning from a departmental to a process-oriented approach.
HM. Clause is an international leader in sustainable agriculture that specializes in the breeding, production, and sales of high-quality vegetable seeds. The international transit of seeds is highly regulated, and the success of a business in this industry heavily relies on several Quality processes and controls to ensure that seeds are free from diseases and have a great potential to grow, meeting farmers' expectations on crop performance.
The challenges
Back in 2013, the company was looking for a QMS solution that could allow documentation and workflows to be shared between people working in multiple departments to increase efficiency and prevent quality-related problems from happening due to information asymmetry. Over the past 10 years, HM. Clause has been a client of Icologiq and has been working together on several modules that significantly improved the way Quality is handled by the company.
With the worldwide growth of the company’s workforce, the classic departmental structure and approach to handling information were unsuitable for maintaining consistency in Quality Management practices. According to Matthieu Peney, Project Lead at HM.Clause "One of our main goals was to make sure that all quality-related information, documents, and processes were standardized because we operate in 20 countries, and we need to have a harmonized way of working, using the same tools in the same way".
Working with a department-based structure instead of a process-based one gives companies little insight into the processes, especially in highly regulated industries that need to provide strict control evidence to comply with phytosanitary standards. Since many problems can emerge from departmental intersections if information handover is not properly managed, keeping processes under control with well thought of streamlined workflows can be of great help. “We really need to be very careful with seed disease prevention, especially in the production part, to be able to export our seeds with the less Quality control testing, which saves time and money," completes Matthieu.
Working with Icologiq Elements
When the roles in a process are clearly defined, automated, and documented in the same system for everyone to use, people can focus their time on preventing and solving problems instead of spending it trying to find the right document or finding who is accountable in a certain process.
Choosing the right EQMS allows companies to create more visibility about Quality controls and productivity throughout each process and identify where additional resources might be needed. Many companies invest a lot of money and energy in a large number of different software solutions to address each specific need and end up with a complex environment where information is disconnected and not easy to reach. According to Matthieu "before Icologiq Elements, HM. Clause had one tool for document management, another for customer complaints, It is great that we can now use the one platform that combines all the Quality Management topics. It helps a lot to harmonize all information and processes with a better learning curve for the users".
When HM. Clause started working with Icologiq, the company was mainly looking for a Document Management system. By working with our team, the company understood that using integrated end-to-end Quality Management Software could reduce the complexity of their operation and improve the level of control. Soon the company started expanding to many other modules, improving the daily activities of thousands of collaborators worldwide. "The platform is called Aquarius internally and I like that everything is integrated. It is great to have all under one tool, where you can expand modules whenever that is suitable for your business. Also, you can easily manage the platform and all the modules at the global level, so it saves a lot of time to gather the right information", explains Matthieu.
Results
Icologiq Elements allows users of multiple departments in 20 countries to register and share information that is critical to the success of HM. Clause's operation. Having relevant or even sensitive data properly handled and actions assigned through workflows along each step of the production brings more structure and clarity to Quality processes. "Our collaborators understand that are rules we must follow, and all the rules are clear in the system. We are able to find the right information in time and at the right place," adds Matthieu.
→ over 5k documents active on the platform
→ approx. 25K actions on average performed per month in the platform
→ 5 times more active users than in 2014
We are proud of collaborating with customers like HM.Clause and provide the structure they need to grow their business while supporting their ambitions in Quality Management. Icologiq Elements is an advanced EQMS that helps Quality leaders worldwide develop and deploy their vision to increase the maturity level of Quality within an organization. Schedule a personalized demo to learn more about our platform and solutions.