How AI can boost efficiencies in your quality management system

Michelle Mimms Date published: Mar 26, 24

Over recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly prevalent across many areas of business – and quality management is no exception. Increasingly, AI is being incorporated into quality management systems (QMS) to boost efficiency and accuracy.

Historically, manufacturing has, perhaps unfairly, been characterized by a culture of change resistance. As a result, it’s crucial for any changes to deliver real value to your operations and be clearly justified to all personnel affected by the change.

Here’s how incorporating AI into your QMS can create new efficiencies, boost productivity and enhance quality control.

What is AI?

In its simplest terms, artificial intelligence is the ability of a computer or software to perform intelligent tasks. AI can be used for a broad range of cognitive functions that usually require human thought, from making predictions to answering questions.

In manufacturing, AI is being embedded within quality management software to power automation, create more streamlined workflows and deliver more accurate insights through data analytics – all while demanding less time and resource from quality management teams.

Generative AI is a subset of artificial intelligence that leverages machine learning models to produce new content. It can generate data that mirrors or replicates the data it has been trained on. This can be used in manufacturing to autofill long, complex forms for example by suggesting text based on its learnings from previous, similar examples.

Using AI to resolve issues

When armed with AI, manufacturers can identify quality issues earlier, more easily and more accurately.

By embedding automated prompts and checks at every stage of the production process, rather than conducting all checks once production is complete, utilizing AI-powered QMS software can help identify quality issues and non-compliance as they occur. So, you can respond more quickly to resolve issues before they have chance to escalate.

This approach also enables manufacturers to close the loop on quality management, identifying opportunities to enhance quality control throughout the product lifecycle.

Capture and interpret data with AI

With AI, you can capture data more thoroughly, accurately and in real-time.

While data quality improves, data management also becomes easier. With automated form completion and data population, you can streamline data capture while reducing the risk of human errors by removing the need for manual data entry.

AI tools can also strengthen your ability to interpret and analyze your quality data, providing in-depth insights and immediate responses to enquiries.

Save time and resource

By introducing new automations and workflow efficiencies into your QMS and eliminating manual paperwork, AI can reduce the time and resource required for a range of tasks.

For example, some AI tools can automatically populate fields for numerous form types, including FMEA and risk analysis.

Additionally, AI can also support more efficient auditing by putting quick and accurate responses to questions at auditors’ fingertips.

Ultimately, at a time when many manufacturers are grappling with labor shortages, AI offers a solution to achieving more with reduced headcounts, while reducing administrative overheads.

Maintain compliance

Finally, integrating AI into your QMS can support you to continuously monitor and verify compliance. In addition to aiding in the identification and resolution of any issues causing non-compliance, the right tool will also help you demonstrate compliance during audits and assessments by presenting thorough, accurate data and immediate response to queries.

Overall, AI is a powerful tool that can help manufacturers boost operational efficiency and modernize quality management. In addition to freeing up more time and resources to focus on other quality management initiatives, AI also has the potential to improve the efficiency, accuracy and performance of your manufacturing operation.

Ideagen Smartforms is empowering organizations to modernize their quality management processes. Using AI to deliver on reducing the time and administrative overhead demand for form completion, your time and effort can be allocated to doing what you do best, rather than spending inordinate amounts of time building and filling out forms. Interested to hear more about how Smartforms works alongside our quality management software to revolutionize the way businesses work? Find out more about Ideagen Smartforms and request a demo to see it in action.

Should you embrace AI?

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