All posts in Quality Control

16 COVID-19 Procedures for Hospitals (According to Clinical Experience from FAHZU)

Hospital infection-control nurse guiding an isolation transport gurney for COVID-19 procedures

This article compiles 16 COVID-19 Procedures for Hospitals according to clinical experience from FAHZU, based on the 2020 Handbook of COVID-19 Prevention and Treatment from The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine.

The templates below are operational examples for hospitals and medical centers designing infection prevention and control workflows, patient-placement procedures, PPE steps, disinfection routines, waste handling, exposure response, and discharge follow-up. They should be reviewed against current WHO, CDC, national, local, and facility-specific guidance before use.

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15 Load Testing Tools, Tips and Methods to Protect You from Crashes

Performance engineer testing a compact server rack for load testing readiness

Load testing tells you how your website, app, or API behaves before traffic exposes a weak point in public. If users complain about a sluggish site, if performance drops when traffic is high, or if a new feature makes the system lag, load testing gives you evidence before the next release.

Load testing is a branch of software performance testing. It subjects a website or application to simulated workloads that stretch its operational capacity so you can assess performance, reliability, and recovery before slow pages affect user experience, search performance, or conversion.

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How Lion Containers Achieved Three ISO Certifications with Process Street

Lion Containers operations lead holding a scale model of a shipping container converted into a glazed office unit

Lion Containers Ltd is the UK’s leading shipping container conversion and modification company, transforming standard shipping containers into bespoke modular projects; from secure storage solutions and office units to pop-up shop complexes complete with insulation, electrics, solar panels, and full-length windows.

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EQMS: How It Will Improve Your Business (+ the Top 8 Solutions)

EQMS

Would you eat a McDonalds Big Mac that was out-of-date, had been dropped on the floor, and made with a stranger’s bare hands?

No! Me neither.

Unfortunately, that’s what thousands of people in China, unknowingly, did.

Back in 2015, the Chinese meat suppliers for McDonald’s were secretly filmed and caught:

“Handling meat and chicken with their bare hands, taking meat that had fallen on the floor and adding it back on to the production line…and forging production dates on beef patties.” – ET2C, Lessons on the Importance of Quality Control Checks

Around 4,300 McDonalds beef patties were tested and found to be out-of-date and contaminated with bacteria.

As a result, over 2,000 McDonald’s outlets across Asia were dramatically affected. The reputation of McDonald’s and their meat supplier was irreversibly damaged, and McDonald’s saw a 7.3% drop in sales.

McDonald’s was definitely not ‘lovin it’.

If only they’d used Enterprise Quality Management Software (EQMS) to regulate their supplier’s meat handling processes and control the quality of the produce they were delivering.

Companies who use EQMS to manage quality, experience fewer product quality issues (less than 1%), and improve their productivity by 20%.

Keen to find out more? Join me in this Process Street post as we run through the following:

Let’s make our way through the golden arches and get started!
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Best QMS Software for Quality Management Systems: Which is Right for You?

quality management system software qms software

Implementing a quality management system (QMS software) is an important investment companies cannot overlook.

One Harvard Business Review study found that companies with an ISO 9001 certification have much higher rates of “corporate survival, sales, employment growth, and wage increases than a matched group of non-adopters.”

For instance, 65% of companies save $25,000 or more in costs within their first year of implementing a QMS.

Adopting a QMS software can also boost efficiency and consistency of work, increase customer satisfaction, raise product value, and reduce unnecessary costs and overall risks.

A good quality management system is all about achieving a quality-driven culture within your company, and as a result, making your product better and marketing it faster. But in order to access these benefits, it’s important that you choose the right QMS solution for you and your company.

In this Process Street article, we’ll be going over the foundation of everything you need to know before choosing your quality management system software.

We’ll be covering:

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How to Use The Deming Cycle for Continuous Quality Improvement

the deming cycle

Understanding quality and seeking to improve it is arguably the core purpose behind undertaking process improvements. Hence the creation of the Deming cycle.

But where did this philosophy of process improvement come from?

One key person is William Edwards Deming – sometimes referred to as Edward W. Deming. He’s principally a statistician, but one could even call him a philosopher of science.

Deming’s goal was to reapply the scientific method to business processes, and has left us with two main variants of his thinking: PDSA and PDCA.

In this article we’ll outline:

Deming’s approach is not just about improving processes, but about improving a whole business.

In a recent meta-study from the British Medical Journal, researchers found only 2 out of 73 studies had applied PDSA in a way which fully met criteria. Commenting:

To progress the development of the science of improvement, a greater understanding of the use of improvement methods, including PDSA, is essential to draw reliable conclusions about their effectiveness.

And that’s why we’re writing this article!

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What is ISO 14000? EMS Basics & Implementation (Environmental Management)

iso 14000

If the United Nations Environment Programme is to be taken seriously, the current generation is the last generation with a realistic chance of kick-starting the processes necessary to halt or reverse the looming global crisis of climate change.

“We are clearly the last generation that can change the course of climate change, but we are also the first generation with its consequences,” Kristalina Georgieva, the CEO of the World Bank.

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What is ISO 9001 Certification? How to Get Certified (For Beginners)

ISO 9001 certification

ISO 9001 certification is an international standard for defining a quality management system (QMS). It outlines various criteria (or standards) to define quality management principles such as focusing on the customer, optimizing leadership and management within the organization, improving and fine-tuning internal processes, and general methods of continuous improvement.

If you’re working toward ISO 9001 certification or maintaining it, Process Street’s ISO 9001 software can help you document, manage, and improve your quality processes with ease.

Let’s break down each of the components of and ISO 9001 certification.

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How to Reduce Defects in Business by 20% Using the Juran Trilogy

juran trilogy

Joseph Juran, the Architect of Quality, paved the way for the active pursuit of quality in Business with the Juran Trilogy.

The Juran Trilogy redefined quality management; reducing chronic defects and the costs associated below a 20% industry expectation.

The Juran Trilogy has been shown to give benefits across multiple parameters, increasing productivity, reducing cycle-times, improving human safety, and reducing product failure rates – with a 80% reduction in some cases.

For us as Process Street, the Juran Trilogy is one of our favorite tools for improving business operations. It’s a straightforward methodology that brings results.

Learn how to apply the Juran Trilogy for your business, and improve the quality of operations. Click on the relevant subheader below to jump to your section of choice, alternatively scroll down to read all we have to say:

Let’s get started!

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Stop Profits Plummeting with a Quality Management Plan

quality management plan

Quality management. Oh, how I love thee.

You’ve given us rubber flavored cookies, phones that go up in smoke, and exploding car airbags (we’ll get to all of that later).

Last year, 337 food products passed through stringent quality management procedures and went to market with major issues. So major, in fact, that each and every one of those products had to be recalled. This cost the US economy over $7 million.

But, the cost of poor quality management surrounding the production of food is only a tiny part of the picture:

“Defective product incidents have caused in excess of $2 billion of losses over five years” – Allianz, Product Recall, Managing the Impact of the New Risk Landscape

When you consider that the global quality management software market is valued at $7.96 billion, why are we, as consumers, still being exposed to low quality, defective products?

Because, contrary to what most organizations think, there is more to quality management than simply making a good product. You need to know how you’re going to make it good and how you’re going to make sure it remains good.

In other words, you need a plan. A quality management plan to be exact.

The reasons for this will become even clearer as we make our way through this Process Street post and discuss:

Let’s get planning.
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