The HSE Manager is constantly confronted with indispensable and often urgent actions arising simultaneously from management, regulations, internal and external audit reports, standards, and so on. When companies want to improve their processes, they also need to put in place action plans and measures to manage these actions.
What tools are needed for an improvement process?
Many companies, when they embark on a process improvement initiative, need to find a method of tracking their progress and creating corrective actions. Most of them still work on an excel file and share this file between the various parties involved.
Unfortunately, with this type of file, it is often complicated
- to monitor each project,
- collaborate effectively with internal and external stakeholders,
- keep track of progress
- report or communicate indicators to line management
- to have a tool available to everyone, at all times and in updated versions of documents
On the market we find both in-house software and collaborative and project management tools such as Monday, Trello and WIMI, but the latter are rather limited in some respects, and don’t allow fine customization of input and output data, nor “clean” execution of actions to remove non-conformities, let alone measure progress.
How a SAAS compliance solution can help all types of organization to manage their global processes
Novallia’s NV Compliance is basically a solution that enables any type of organization to manage its global compliance procedures.
Since compliance and continuous improvement of sites, products or activities is the ultimate goal, the application will follow the entire compliance process, whatever the objective:
- we start by identifying “what needs to be done”, whether these are regulatory requirements, standards, internal/external audit findings or management decisions
- we then go on to identify deviations using the dedicated conformity assessment module
- Finally, we use the module for implementing improvement and compliance action plans.
What’s more, the solution can generate and automate a series of graphs, statistics, indicators and dashboards to optimize the overall process view.
A concrete example: managing improvement actions following an audit report
➡️ Issues
A company wants to manage its improvement process by implementing corrective actions, which are ordered by process. She uses our web tool to manage the actions.
Its specific needs include
- Feeding and using the tool by importing and exporting existing Excel files or findings from audit reports
- Internal monitoring of actions through multi-dimensional reporting and historical data
- Manage action plans by sending notifications to the relevant pilots
- Control the execution of actions by setting locks and alerts
- Collaboration and exchange between contributors
In terms of implementation :
👉 Defining requirements and entering them into the database
The Novallia team opens a tree structure based, for example, on each of the Processes. Each category is populated by Non-Conformities. In other words, audit results are treated as regulatory requirements in the usual logic of NV Compliance.
👉 Gap assessment
Via the “Compliance” module, the NV Compliance application enables you to assess deviations. Either directly on the application with the addition of a status :
- Compliant: the requirement is applicable to the site and respected.
- Non-compliant / Minor non-compliant / Major non-compliant: the requirement is applicable to the perimeter concerned, but is not met. Non-compliance can be prioritized
- To be verified: the user does not have sufficient elements to judge (lack of proof or evidence).
- Future non-compliance: the requirement is complied with until the necessary compliance date.
- For information: Non-Compliance relates to a generality or to a person who is not the customer.
- Not applicable: Non-Compliance relates to an activity or information that is not present in the scope under consideration.
The conformity assessment can also be carried out offline in Excel, using the export function. The assessment report will indicate:
- Compliance status
- Evaluation dates
- Annotations and comments
- if necessary, the need to create an action plan
Users can also carry out evaluations and add their comments directly on the report. He will then re-import it into the tool, and the modifications will be automatically taken into account.
The most important thing when using this Excel export/reimport functionality is to agree on the terms used: you need to use a procedure, harmonize the vocabulary used from the outset and keep the same for each section.
👉 Action plan modules
The NV Compliance Application includes a menu that is essential to the smooth running of the regulatory compliance exercise: the “Action plans” menu. Requirements identified as non-conforming generate a semi-automatic action plan.
For each action, the action plan creator assigns :
- A wording
- A reference (free text)
- A priority
- An action plan manager, a pilot
- The opening (or not) of specific Tasks
- The reminder process: periodic and/or one-off reminders
- The method for calculating rates of advancement
- An action start date and an end date
👉 NV Compliance’s innovative features
- Online sharing of all information
- Import and re-import excel at any time
- Real-time compliance dashboards
- customizing indicators
- module input handled by the novallia team and customized for each company
In conclusion: Why should you, as an HSE manager, use NV Compliance to manage your audit reports?
- Optimizing productivity NV Compliance simplifies project management and compliance assessment by centralizing all data and processes. The team saves precious time by avoiding the tedious tasks of collecting and tracking information.
- Facilitating real-time collaboration Unlike Excel, which requires the management of multiple file versions, NV Compliance enables real-time collaboration. Teams can work together on a project, see instant updates and, above all, eliminate delays due to file exchanges.
- Transparency and visibility Our application gives companies real-time visibility of the status of each project and the compliance of your operations. This enables informed decisions to be made, resources to be better allocated and potential delays to be minimized.
- Customization and flexibility NV Compliance is a web application designed to adapt to the specific needs of companies. It can be customized in terms of inputs: it can be used to drive both improvement processes following an audit, and regulatory compliance requirements.
- Access to in-depth analysis and reports Excel can be limited in terms of analytical capabilities, and requires a mastery of formulas that is not always accessible to everyone. Our application offers advanced analysis features on the degree of compliance (major, minor, upcoming, etc.) and generates detailed reports and customizable dashboards. The result is a clear view of project compliance and performance.
- Enhanced data security and historicity Data security is essential, especially when it comes to compliance. Our application offers advanced levels of security, including data encryption and customized access authorizations, protecting sensitive information far better than a shared Excel sheet, and keeping track of the work of different protagonists.
- Easy interfacing with regulatory and standards compliance, enabling managers to use a single cross-functional tool