Quality Control

Improving Quality Control and Reducing Reporting Time by 95% with Owl Analytics

Challenge

The Quality Assurance and Control team for a multi-million-dollar consumer packaged goods (CPG) company faced significant challenges in monitoring the performance of their quality management process. Their workflow involved:

  • Utilizing Excel spreadsheets to run ad-hoc analysis with data pulled from the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS).
  • Manually calculating KPIs (such as, Turnaround Times (TAT) and Out of Specification (OOS)) for raw materials, work in process and finished goods, a process that took hours.
  • Struggling with report updates and changes, requiring frequent manual adjustments and recalculations.

The negative impacts of this scenario resulted in slow response times to requests from other areas of the business, difficulties in proactively identifying performance issues that required corrective actions and significant productivity waste due to lack of visibility and automation.    

Solution

Owl Analytics provided a comprehensive solution that streamlined the company’s reporting and data analysis processes by making LIMS data accessible:

  • Customized reports tailored to the specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) needed by the company.
  • Automated generation of monthly performance highlights reports, enabling regular monitoring of TATs and OOS completion rates.
  • Enhanced insights into internal processes, highlighting products exceeding turnaround times or falling out of specification.
  • Improved tracking of external contract labs’ performance and internal documentation processes, facilitating better process adjustments and system implementations.

Why They Chose The Owl 

The Quality Systems and Validation Manager highlighted several reasons for choosing and appreciating Owl Analytics:

  • Responsiveness and Flexibility: The team behind Owl Analytics promptly addressed any report changes or updates, adapting to the internal team’s evolving requirements.
  • Customization: The ability to customize reports based on specific KPIs allowed for more targeted and relevant data analysis.
  • Collaborative Approach: The team behind Owl Analytics worked closely with the internal team, ensuring that the reports met all their needs and expectations.
  • Efficiency: Automated reporting saved significant time, allowing the team to focus on deeper analysis and process improvements.

Results

Implementing Owl Analytics led to transformative outcomes for the company:

  • Time Savings: The automated reporting process reduced the time spent on manual calculations by 95%, freeing up over an hour per reporting cycle.
  • Improved Insights: Enhanced visibility into turnaround times and OOS rates enabled the team to quickly identify and address process inefficiencies.
  • Stakeholder Communication: Reports could be easily shared with both internal and external stakeholders, improving transparency and collaboration.
  • Operational Efficiency: The company could now focus on understanding insights and implementing actionable improvements rather than getting bogged down in manual reporting tasks.

Testimonial

“Owl Analytics was able to address all of our requirements. The team behind Owl Analytics is great to work with and the platform became key for supporting our day-to-day performance management and continuous improvement initiatives,” said the Quality Systems and Validation Manager.

By using Owl Analytics, the company transformed its reporting and data analysis workflows, gaining valuable time and insights to drive continuous improvement in their operations.