Kimberly-Clark Corporation (K-C) is a leading manufacturer of consumer products, medical supplies, and medical devices.
With manufacturing facilities in 35 countries and sales of over $19B, K-C recognized a need for a system that could more efficiently and effectively manage the quality, environmental, health and safety processes across their global empire.
K-C previously had disparate Quality Management, Environmental Management, and Safety Management Systems, each with separate workflows and some of which were managed manually. They recognized the commonalities inherent in each of these systems and decided to take a holistic approach by combining all common processes into shared Safety, Environmental, and Quality (SEQ) workflows. Using this approach, K-C was able to create shared SEQ workflows for their Document Control, Training and Qualification, Incidents Management, Nonconformance, Meetings, Audit, and Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA) processes.
The business need
K-C’s integration of SEQ workflows began with a need to provide the most value for their customers while using minimal resources. To effectively reduce waste within their organization, K-C decided to incorporate Lean principles into their SEQ workflows — implementing a clear, visually oriented tool would guide employees through a process in an intuitive, simple way. Rolling out separate safety, environment, and quality tools at each facility would conflict with Lean principles, resulting in confusion, redundancy, and other wastes. A tool that could integrate SEQ workflows together was critical to K-C’s strategy. Taking these requirements into consideration, the wheels were set in motion. Global standardization was another driver for integration. K-C needed all employees in all locations to standardize on the same business practices to eliminate system fragmentation. There were previously hundreds of SEQ systems in use within K-C’s business units and facilities. This resulted in difficulty in roll-up reporting, many manual and labor-intensive systems, as well as hidden IT costs.
With these drivers in mind, K-C began the road toward integration and in harmonizing their organization’s Safety, Environmental, and Quality Processes.
Filling the gap
When beginning to implement their SEQ vision, K-C turned to their employees for guidance. Using a “wish list” of user requirements created by employees, they concluded that their system would need to be the following:
Holistic
K-C employees requested a system that could work across functions and business units like they do in a plant and essentially incorporate all of the aspects of their organization into one system.
Intuitive
They wanted a system that was intuitive and easy to use. Something that could be used regardless of where the user was located — whether in management or on the shop floor. Essentially, they needed a system that would support Lean principles.
Fast
They required a system that was fast and responsive in order to provide maximum efficiency throughout the organization.
End user driven
Finally, K-C employees wanted to have input over the selection and design of the system. This list of requirements ultimately brought them to Reliance. Kimberly-Clark Corporation Integrates Safety, Environmental, and Quality Workflows to Achieve Maximum Harmonization.
After looking into the top 13 IT solutions in the market, they narrowed their list down to 3 vendors — Reliance was among these. The top 3 solutions were brought onsite and rated by more than 40 of K-C’s employees. Reliance received an overwhelming amount of support and was selected as the preferred vendor.
Reaping the benefits
Using Reliance as a platform, K-C was able to integrate their overlapping point solutions into a harmonized SEQ process. This is allowing them to completely eliminate system fragmentation and is resulting in global standardization for their organization. The implementation of Reliance has allowed K-C to incorporate Lean principles into their SEQ workflows, which has helped them eliminate unnecessary waste and confusion within their organization. The result is a simple, unifying system that has replaced over 700 redundant systems with just one, yielding significant cost-savings and improved productivity.
Continued expansion
Since the implementation of Reliance, K-C has rolled out several modules including Document Control, CAPA, and Complaint Handling, with other modules continually being added, such as Change Management, Meetings, Safety Events, Non-Conformance Reporting, and Training. K-C has been able to use Reliance to help effectively integrate their processes and produce a holistic system that benefits them across their global enterprise.
