A medical device company discovered 57 separate quality data systems scattered across its factories, from SPC software to Access databases to lab platforms. IT assumed everything lived in SAP. The real work was mapping each source and building a plan to merge them into one reporting system.
wanted a corporate quality dashboard. And I talked to the IT department and they said that all the quality data was in SAP. I told them, no, it's not. And in the end, we found a variety of different SPC systems. We found inspection systems, mainly spreadsheets or Access databases. We found testing systems, laboratory systems, and In the end, we found 57 different systems with quality data across the medical plants. And so there's data out there. It's just a question of finding those different data sources, different data elements and so forth, getting those documented, understanding what systems are being used for what, where you may want to combine different things, and putting that strategy in place for how you want to evolve into the future that you want to.
