Quality Control in Business Processes is critical: 4 Tips to Improve QC (including Automation)

Understanding Quality Control

Quality control (or QC in short) is often seen as a way to strive for excellence in processes. This is accomplished by developing product/service quality standards, putting in processes to meet them and evaluating output for statistically noteworthy variations. 

The creation of well-defined standards is an important element of QC. Quality control entails evaluating components to see if they meet the standards for the finished product or service. Screening is done to determine whether any remedial actions are required in the production process. Effective quality control assists businesses in meeting customer demands for improved goods. 

Here are 4 ways that Quality can be improved: 

1. Leveraging the power of automation in business process 

Automation could indeed significantly boost quality control and help users optimize resources. You must look for solutions and systems that easily combine with your current technology infrastructure and are also flexible. 

Businesses have started looking at areas like AI to boost automation as well as QC. By 2020, approximately 20% of questioned global business leaders, managers, and experts said their company had made significant modifications to a number of its business operations as a result of integrating AI into its strategy. Nearly 1/3^rd of respondents within organizations across the globe agreed that there was change in business operations in some way while adopting artificial intelligence solutions.

2. Conducting quality tests upfront 

Quality Control is not Quality Assurance – a QA audit is to verify everything is in order after the fact (after the output service or product is produced). However, QC suggests we examine processes from the start so that any problems can be identified and resolved sooner.

Performing evaluations early on saves resources as issues are not allowed to fester and require more rework. A well-managed and constantly enhanced procedure can minimize errors, shorten operational turn times, boost productivity, spot waste, remove redundancy, and promote overall process performance. 

Overall, it also improves uniformity, quality, and compliance, mitigates risks, and gives management more insight into operational processes. 

3. Using existing process maps to achieve quality and process improvement 

Operational processes can be visually outlined using common BPM and business process planning techniques (such as Flow chart, Value stream map, Swim-lanes, SIPOC, etc.). These techniques can help define how an existing process moves through different divisions, the various stages within the procedure, and the elements within operations that operate consecutively or in tandem in an easy-to-understand, regulated manner. It also highlights the interfaces/ information exchange areas, and is used to add QC (and Compliance) steps or to identify sub-processes where defects may be introduced. 

Process mapping helps in analyzing existing processes and identifying inefficiencies or lack of effectiveness which may be refined and streamlined. Feedback from stakeholders is used to identify the steps in the process that consume the most time, lead to bottlenecks, cause communication failures, fail to deliver value, and could be reconfigured or removed, for instance, by creating some functions conditional, incorporating certain processes, integrating data access permission, or automating manual operations. Measurements may be needed to get an accurate picture of the current state of the processes, and this method is effective for continuous improvement as well. 

4. Digital transformation in Quality Control processes 

With technology application becoming more pervasive, we are seeing changes in how QC is being carried out in organizations, specifically in the financial services industry. Digital transformation enablers include AI/ ML, RPA, and many other such technologies. 

There are many platforms which have been built to address Quality Control and compliance processes. One such solution is Copasys by Coforge Business Process Solutions. This is an enterprise-wide platform for automating quality control, risk management, and regulatory compliance, and has helped its users reduce Manual QC efforts by as much as 95% in some cases. When combined with Intelligent Document Processing, which is able to read scanned physical documents to collect data of real-world transactions, such platforms become even more powerful as they are able to compare information on physical documents with those available on the transactions platforms, and run the information against QC rules specified in repositories (which may also be maintained in platforms like Copasys). To read more about Copasys, click here 

Conclusion 

The most recent innovations and technology services could indeed make quality control more nimble, dependable, compliant, and effective. Businesses can reshape the method by which they do quality control by establishing suitable objectives, selecting the right tools, and building the right skills. This will allow them to offer better and more defect-free products and services at a lower cost. 

Coforge's demonstrated experience in enabling digital process transformation through automation, coupled with its deep domain knowledge, allows Coforge to assist organizations in transforming into tomorrow's digital companies and improve customer experience. All of the above technologies, products and services (Intelligent automation, AI, Process mapping, digital transformation, automated Quality Control & compliance etc) are offered by Coforge Business Process Solutions.