Saving lives is rewarding, and since you’re technically involved in the construction of the hardware doing the work, that kind of makes you a hero, right? Don’t go out and buy a red cape just yet though. As medical devices get more and more complicated with evolving technology, manufacturing costs keep rising and quality control requirements become even more rigorous and complex. More resources are needed to keep up with the increasing amounts of work, but manual back office processes among other inefficiencies prevent manufacturers from reaching their maximum productivity.
With the right tools these processes can be transformed by automating repetitive tasks and improving accessibility to information while promoting sustainability by using less paper. Saving lives and the forest at the same time? You’re practically Mother Teresa. Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is a powerful business solution that can do just that (transform your processes, not make you Mother Teresa), bringing organizations reduced costs and increasing productivity to levels hitherto deemed impossible.
Within medical device manufacturing operations, there’s a lot of processes that could benefit from an ECM strategy, such as quality control and engineering change order processes, as well as contract management. Part of the problem with these is the time it takes to get all the required documentation together to move forward. ECM automatically captures information into its system as it arrives and sorts it by to type, making it searchable by keyword. You don’t need to organize a pirate treasure hunt to find needed drawings and forms, even if you did convince everyone in your office to call you Captain for the day. So put down your eye patch and revel in the fact that everything is available in one central digital content library, where anyone who has clearance can get to it. Ok fine, you can wear the eye patch, stop whining.
The easy accessibility that ECM provides will help to open lines of communication between individuals, departments, and plants (no, this does not mean you’ll be bombarded by all of Betty from Accounting’s cat videos). When information can be shared faster, employees can make better informed decisions more quickly to prevent mistakes that could lead to lower product quality or recalls.
To further drive the efficiency of these processes, ECM process automation can take care of tasks that don’t necessarily require your attention, such as data entry, document routing, and records retention so you can focus on higher value things like, I don’t know, ordering your lunch online (and other stuff, of course). Since ECM solutions are versatile enough to fit different needs without custom coding, you can integrate it with other applications and alter its settings to grow with your organization as its requirements change.
As the technology of the devices you manufacture improves, your technology should improve to keep up. Managing the construction of cutting edge medical devices with the same software you’ve been using for a decade makes no sense, and your organization is paying the price through lost time, lowered productivity, and expensive manual processes. Beefing up your operations with an enterprise content management solution is a powerful way to eliminate these inefficiencies so you can see what you’re really capable of. For more information on ECM, check out the super awesome ECM guide below.
