Smart Collaboration in the Cloud

In the medical industry, the highest quality standards are required to ensure that products function perfectly in practice. Whether for operating surgery equipment, dialysis systems or medical robotics – reliable, high-quality and innovative contract developers are required to map quality processes across locations together with their business partners. The close networking with suppliers in the supply network and the development of these then require one thing above all: adequate digital tools.

As a highly specialized all-rounder, the WILD Group, headquartered in Austria, has built up extensive know-how in various future markets – with the mission of developing further together with its customers. For its customers, WILD is therefore a trusted technology partner in sectors including medical technology, optical technologies and industrial engineering. The company develops and realizes high-quality products exclusively on behalf of customers and guarantees stable processes for all orders throughout the entire product life cycle. Special attention must be paid to quality management in order to meet the high requirements of standards and customers.

Good cooperation with its own customers is crucial for WILD as a development expert and contract manufacturer. However, in order to guarantee excellent quality for its own orders, smooth preliminary work is also required.  As a technology partner of renowned manufacturers, WILD not only has particularly high demands on its employees, but also on the quality of its suppliers. Smart solutions are needed to continuously improve cooperation with them and, as a result, product quality. Networking is the order of the day here: for several months now, the WILD Group has been relying on Babtec’s cloud-based platform, BabtecQube. It can be used to digitalize quality tasks across company boundaries and process them jointly with business partners. The results already speak for themselves: so far, 20 suppliers as well as the three sites in Austria and one in Trnava (SK) have been integrated. Since then, the speed and efficiency of the complaints process have increased significantly, quality has been improved in the long term through targeted measures, and the exchange of information on quality issues has become more open.

At the push of a button, a complaint or deviation is now created using the proven 8D report and all relevant data is shared with suppliers. Regular status messages then informs the user whether a supplier has received the complaint and has already started processing it. All parties involved work in one digital document – data is exchanged quickly and clearly without generating an unmanageable flood of e-mails. Comment and feedback functions as well as a complete history also support communication and strengthen collaboration. Just like the fact that the software connects the right people and the focus is always on the important things: good quality and fast processing.

Another advantage is that the cloud-based solution makes networking with suppliers very quick and uncomplicated. After an e-mail invitation and registration, they are automatically connected to WILD after just a few clicks and have secure access to part of the quality processes without having to install the standard BabtecQ software themselves or bring along other prerequisites.

Whether an issue is analyzed directly on the shop floor or at a meeting, those involved can work on the data in real time via the cloud – regardless of location, whether on a PC, tablet or smartphone. The further development of its own suppliers is one of WILD’s strengths; the company has invested heavily in this area and is clearly charting a course that ultimately benefits the customer. In the best case, the customer is not affected by deviations, because the supply chain reacts quickly and promised delivery dates are met despite difficulties.

However, the use of BabtecQube is not only intended to eliminate grievances and errors. Through targeted communication, discrepancies are eliminated before they even become a problem and generate additional costs as well as effort. For these reasons, WILD plans to bring additional partners into the system in the coming months to exchange information on other topics, such as queries during initial sample inspection or quality-relevant characteristics. In this way, the company intends to gradually develop quality management together with its business partners so that it can meet the high demands of customers and standards.