Slaying the Document Management Beast
Powerway Inc. Document Manager

Like nearly all automotive suppliers, Kent Manufacturing Co. of Grand Rapids, Michigan, faces the need to generate a considerable amount of manufacturing documentation to comply with the industry’s demanding quality standards. In the past, manually producing and maintaining these documents occupied a considerable amount of the company’s quality control staff’s time.

Kent Manufacturing has substantially reduced the amount of time spent on documentation by implementing a document management system specifically designed to assist in the creation, approval and distribution of manufacturing documents such as policy statements, procedures, work instructions and production part approval processes (PPAP) submissions.

"Managing all of this documentation is a major task, especially for a company of our size," says Steve Denhof, Kent Manufacturing’s director of quality. "While our initial QS-9000 certification was a huge job, it’s also a major task to stay on top of the process of maintaining the documents upon which our certification is based."

Kent began working with Powerway Inc.’s document management solutions when the company first started the process of becoming registered to QS-9000 and ISO 9001. Powerway programs such as Policy Writer, Procedure Writer and Instruction Writer enabled Kent to complete the necessary documentation in fewer than three months. The software tools work within the framework of Powerway Document Manager, which provides a secure environment for document authoring, change control, revision history and audit trails for each document. Powerway Desktop, used by all of Kent’s document consumers, provides simple document search tools, review and comment functions, as well as document viewing and printing. Kent’s managers estimate it would have taken at least six months to complete registration using traditional tools such as a word processor and spreadsheet. Now, the company uses Powerway Quality Planner for its PPAP.

"We used to spend at least a day producing each PPAP package," says Denhof. "One person collected the various documents that were required as a starting point, primarily packages that had been prepared for components that shared operations with the new components. The complexity of creating a PPAP is increased by links that must be maintained in perfect agreement throughout the document. If an operation is added, subtracted or moved, you have to do the same thing to all of the dependent sections. With a word processor, this takes a considerable amount of time, and there is always the potential for an error that might cause the document to be rejected."

Kent maintains its entire quality system documentation with Powerway Document Manager. "Document Manager automatically prompts me when a document has reached the point where it needs to be reviewed and lets me vary the time period between reviews for different types of documents," says Denhof.

After the document has been modified, the software manages the review process by routing the approval to the appropriate people and tracking any comments and changes that might be made to the document. The comments and changes are readily accessible to all appropriate personnel.

"Powerway document management tools work together to provide a nearly paperless environment that dramatically reduces the amount of time required to manage manufacturing documentation," says Denhof. "Automating much of the routine part of the documentation process leaves us more time to spend on our proactive efforts to improve quality and also reduces the potential for mistakes. Customers tell us that our sample submissions are very clean and easy to follow. Our documents are also all organized in the same way, which makes them easier for our customers, employees and registrars to understand. The software is very easy to use, so we can typically bring a new operator up to speed in five minutes or so."

Powerway Inc. Document Manager

Benefits:

• Maintains required documentation for ISO 9001 and ISO/TS 16949 registration.
• Implementing Powerway Document Manager has reduced the amount of time needed to maintain these documents by 50 percent.
• Document Manager includes various programs that apply to different aspects of document management: Policy Writer, Quality Planner, Corrective Action, Procedure Writer and Instruction Writer, among others.

www.powerwayinc.com