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 Challenge
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.
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 Challenge
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.