"We now work 40% more efficiently than before"

By Paulus Eras

Professional document management was introduced in Syngenta Seeds in 1997. The company, which operates worldwide and focuses on the development, production and marketing of flower and vegetable seeds and agricultural seeds, such as maize and soya, then decided on the urging from the market to become ISO certified. ‘This meant that numerous aspects, including document management and process descriptions had to be arranged in a more formal manner', remembers quality consultant Tjeerd Klaassens CQE (Certified Quality Engineer). ‘Within the company many documents were in circulation all the time, but there were no master documents or work instructions. Instead there was frustration. Within the framework of ISO, document management had to become more structured. This decision required software support. An additional issue was that Syngenta has to support not only the Dutch branches, but all of the locations in Europe'.

The Quality Assurance Department initially worked with a paper-based system, supported by MS Office, to gain experience. After half a year, master documents proved to be missing, and even worse, various versions of the same document were circulating within the company. There was also the danger that research and production lacked a uniform working method with all of the associated risks for the quality that had to be guaranteed.

Continuity

Following a selection procedure, the software supplier Quality Online with its Document Online package proved to be one of the few suppliers who were prepared to enter into a long-term relationship with Syngenta. Other important requirements that the company placed on the software and the supplier were: multi-site, to be used in every part of the organisation and not only in office but also in production environments, not too much training required, price and attention for innovation.

‘The process owner element was also important. The company has a structure of clearly recognisable processes. Process owners are directors, managers and sometimes group leaders. This modification is built into the software'.

‘Maintenance did not weigh so heavily, but afterwards it proved to work well. The Syngenta philosophy is that software must operate for a longer time within the company. Therefore continuity is important. This also means the continuity of the relationship with the software partner. In a certain way, this cooperation was a leap in the dark.

Europe-wide implementation

After a half year's trial in Enkhuizen, in May 1998, the Quality Online package was immediately implemented in the company throughout Europe, starting with the research departments of the Vegetables division. Where previously the problem was that researchers did their work in their own way, now, due to the uniform process and procedure descriptions, the employees were able to understand the situation within half an hour. This was in the time that Syngenta still used the Lotus Notes version of the software. For two years it has been even simpler with the web-based version of Quality Online.

The local work instructions are positioned under the all-encompassing processes, that include among other things measurement points. These can differ dependent on the local situation. This can relate to legislation and regulations or, for instance, different irrigation systems.

Who and what, and sometimes why, that's what it's all about. This information is given in the procedures; The ‘how' is given in the work instructions, these are, as it were, the cookery book for the employees. If an employee sows two batches of seed, the work instruction prescribes how it must be done, including the required volumes'.

After 1998, the package was rolled out to the establishments in the other countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa

‘It proved easier than I had expected to convince the people within EMEA of the sense and necessity of implementing the package. All employees must be able to work with it. This places requirements on the robustness and user-friendliness of the software. For specialists who already work with software this is normally not a problem, but production employees normally don't use software very much. In the latter case: a kind of culture change process. Yes'. Quality Online must therefore be able to address all nuances of a company culture.

‘However, there was also some resistance. Everyone wanted to be autonomous and were affected by the not-invented-here syndrome. What is important to us is that the ISO certificate was not the objective, but it was a milestone to continue with quality management'.

Quality Online has now also been supplied to Canada, the United States and Mexico. In APAC (Asia), the first training courses will be held in the autumn. Within Syngenta, the system has about 1,200 users, this will rise eventually to approximately 4,000 users.

Compliant

‘The savings that such a document management system creates is expressed in Syngenta in terms of efficiency improvement: employees now carry out their work 40% more efficiently than before. Master documents or other types of documents no longer get lost and the right version is always available on the screen. It is therefore a very essential tool and although the savings it makes are difficult to express in terms of money, it certainly has the effect we desire.'

‘Added to this is that international accounting rules, Sarbanes-Oxley, IFRS, Solvency II, now play a significant role. Therefore compliance. This means that document logistics is becoming ever more important. The head office in Basel wants to have an impression of the SOX-related documents and where possible gaps are present in the process descriptions. The package shows these at various levels, such as location, country and region (e.g. EMEA).

The working method now is that new documents are approved by two function positions within the organisation: the standards' expert (e.g. SOX, ISO, Environment) and the process owner. A document is first submitted to the standards' expert who critically reviews it and then forwards it to the process owner. However, with respect to administration, the management of documents remains in the hands of the employees, while the process owner remains involved by means of the approval of change proposals, the approval of documents and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). ‘The result is that document management has very wide support in the organisation.'

A component that certainly proves its value is the Quality Online management reporting module, which among other things gives an indication that documents are being maintained and updated. For process management it is important that the key documents are correctly maintained. Spot checks remove aged documents from the system. Quality Online software also plays a role in the area of complaints management and the follow up of internal process shortcomings.

Supporting company processes using a single software suite has as the major advantage that users rapidly learn a second application. After all, the program offers the same ‘look-and-feel'. A second advantage is that the user organisation only has to be input to the system once. If various software packages are used, the user organisation has to be recreated every time.

Therefore, this package offers flexible scalability; Once Quality Online has been installed for a business unit, it is easy to add more users or more business units. This is ideal for a multinational that wants, in time, to have all of its branches to use the same application.