Many manufacturing companies subscribe to quality systems, which are put in place to assure companies that want to do business with a firm, that the firm has an established quality system.  These systems include ISO-9000, AS-9100 and TS-16949.One of these, TS-16949 has a requirement for what is known as a QOS or a quality operating system.

A quality operating system or QOS is a system of measures across the entire organization, which is put in place to monitor the effectiveness of the company and its ability to produce quality products and services.  Quality measurements are technically a non-value added process since they don’t directly relate to the actual production of goods so it is important that the labor to collect and distribute these measurements is kept to a minimum.

The best way to keep QOS costs to a minimum is to implement manufacturing software, specifically ERP software.  ERP software is best because like QOS it is enterprise, or company wide. We will take a look at QOS and where ERP software can be employed.

Common measures include PPM or percent of defects both internal and external and on time delivery percentage.  Also measured is suppler quality based on PPM of reject raw materials received.

The measure of PPM or parts per million is often used, especially the automotive and electronics industries. Percentage reporting is generally not found in QOS systems. Without MRP or ERP software, calculating PPMs can be a time consuming procedure. It amounts to gathering data on total parts produced, total parts shipped, total internal defects, and total defects that reached the customer.  These statistics are often gathered up in the first week of every month, for the previous month. This means that there is an effective lag in reporting and a lag in detecting issues.

On top of this is detailed analysis of the reject data. What the top offending issues are, what is the percentage of each? In fact you can be well on your way to the second month before you completely dissect the first month.

Using ERP software, parts or units can be counted as they ship.  Defects are also entered in as they are produced, effectively giving real time internal PPM measurements.  In fact most ERP software packages give quality amusements that can be customized so the PPM is effectively analyzed on a continual basis. By eliminating the lag in reporting quality can be improved by checking the data on a daily basis

For problems that manage to escape, the scenario is very similar. Using the ERP software, customer service enters customer complaints into the system as they are received. In most cases quality also has access to amend this data when returned parts are actually analyzed.  As with the internal rejects, this data is analyzed as soon as it is entered into the system. The external PPM is displayed along with trend charts and other analysis tools available in the ERP software.

Finally, supplier issues are tracked in the same fashion.  Total quantities are entered as the materials are received in the ERP system. The purchasing manager will enter in rejects as they occur and just like internal and external PPM, The ERP software will calculate PPM on a real time basis.

Similar functions exist in ERP software for on time delivery and a host of other customizable measurements. By using the quality module of ERP systems, quality can be improved on a real time basis.  Compared to the cost, the results are priceless.

Call center performance management software is now recognized as a valuable solution to a long-standing problem. Much of the information within most contact centers is still collected and stored in disparate systems. Each system typically has its own reports, making it very difficult to make cohesive and accurate decisions based on data that can’t be properly compared and analyzed. With the advent of call center performance management software, companies can now cost-effectively merge all of their bits and pieces of inter-related intelligence from multiple applications and multiple locations into one big chunk of consolidated, actionable information.

With real-time call center performance management software, organizations can collect data pertaining to the vast number of interactions handled, such as how they are classified and evaluated. Call center performance management software can show managers which and how many coaching sessions have been taken, review employee skills, their performance over time, and much more. With color-coded drill-through reports, managers can rapidly identify employees displaying outstanding and poor performance. Reasons for poor responses to sales and marketing campaigns or product launches can be accurately identified much more quickly – based upon detailed, just-in-time analysis of specific areas of concern. To help enable this, innovative call center performance management software systems offer the most meaningful, consolidated performance metrics used by contact centers today and standardized data collectors for popular PBXs, ACDs, WFM and CRM solutions.

Empowering Front-line Employees with Real-time KPIs and Notifications:

Given that contact center agents account for two-thirds of contact center overhead costs, companies are also looking for ways to get more out of these front-line employees. Typically, contact center employees want to do well and are competitive in nature. A real-time call center performance management software system that helps deliver real-time information provides immediate feedback and reinforcement to motivate quality and performance improvements – it empowers employees to quickly get where they want to be. The combination of greater, faster responsiveness and better decisions translates to increased staff morale, productivity and utilization.

Rapid, Outstanding Results:

A group of highly successful, progressive contact centers have achieved rapid, outstanding results with the latest real-time call center performance management software systems. By delivering the right information to the right employees at the right time, based on individual or contact center performance, they are empowering their staff to make immediate, accurate decisions and properly change direction on an intraday basis. For example, shortly after implementing real-time employee desktop tickers and integrated electronic coaching, major retailer 1-800-FLOWERS.COM experienced five additional sales per employee per day and a significant three percent increase in overall sales conversions. A leading U.S. bank achieved a 16 percent reduction in outbound talk time, a 34 percent increase in average speed of answer, and a 37 percent improvement in abandon rate – resulting in a quick return on their investment in less than 60 days. By empowering their employees with real-time desktop performance tickers and notifications, a global telecommunications leader recently reduced talk time by ten percent, decreased their post-call wrap time by 12 percent, boosted call quality scores by 14 percent, increased instant payments by 13 percent and increased dollars collected by five percent – resulting in the generation of several million dollars.

To learn more about best practices for using and the latest developments in Call Center Performance Management Software, visit VPI-corp.

Patrick Botz serves as Corporate Vice President of Solutions Marketing for VPI (Voice Print International), the leading provider of interactions recording, contact center quality management and performance optimization solutions. Leveraging more than a decade of field experience as a CRM and contact center practitioner, he focuses on the mission-critical aspects of capturing customer intelligence and optimizing business processes and workforce performance. Patrick’s work has been published in Customer Inter@ction Solutions, Business Management, Contact Professional, Call Center Magazine, Connections Magazine and Contact Center World. Patrick holds an MBA from Pepperdine University and a BSE in Engineering from Arizona State University.