Quality management systems (QMS) helps businesses assess and maintain the quality of produced goods and customer experiences. A QMS is used to define and implement quality specifications based on customer requirements in conformance with industry standards and regulations. QMS helps quality professionals perform inspections, generate documentation, and report on issues such as defective merchandise or product recalls. Production managers use this type of software to implement corrective or preventive actions, and optimize product quality. Manufacturing and supply companies can use QMS products to audit the production process from start to finish to avoid a wide variety of potential hazards and issues and increase revenue by providing better customer satisfaction.
QMS tools often integrate with product lifecycle management (PLM) software and ERP systems, especially manufacturing ERP such as discrete ERP software, engineering to order (ETO) ERP software, and mixed-mode ERP software. Integration with environmental health and safety (EHS) software is also important to protect employees and the environment. Some vendors offer suites that combine QMS and EHS into a single integrated system.
To qualify for inclusion in the Quality Management Systems (QMS) category, a product must:
- Support engineering change management for quality improvement
- Monitor nonconformance and out of specification products and components
- Provide a database of risk and compliance information and documentation
- Generate documents for incidents and quality control activities
- Provide training and certification to comply with quality standards and regulations
- Ensure quality and compliance for the fixed assets used by the company
- Include functionality to monitor supplier quality and performance
- Assist with corrective actions and preventive actions (CAPA) for quality issues
- Deliver customizable workflows and checklists for inspections and audits
