Home > Digitization for industrial companies – here’s how it works. > A day in the life of a quality manager at ekey.
Insights into quality management from an interview with… Holger Methe.
Holger Methe has been Quality Manager at ekey biometric systems since 2008. During this time, he has built up quality management within the company.
About ekey
ekey is an Austrian company headquartered in Linz and Europe’s No. 1 in fingerprint access solutions. It was founded in 2002 and specializes in products for biometric building access.
With around 100 employees, ekey relies on internal expertise and is characterized by the fact that everything from research to the finished product comes from a single source. This is also reflected in the core processes: At ekey, there are two focal points, development on the one hand and ongoing production on the other.
Designing and improving processes in the company is one of Holger Methe’s main tasks. We asked what projects and tasks keep the quality manager busy in his day-to-day work and provide an insight here!
Quality management at ekey – a multifaceted area of responsibility.
The quality management department at ekey consists of two people. Holger Methe focuses primarily on strategic work, while his colleague Patrick Ledersberger mainly handles operational tasks.
The work of a quality manager at ekey is very multifaceted. The topics that Holger Methe deals with on a daily basis range from process development, QM documentation, the entire test equipment management in the company through to audits.
In addition to installing and maintaining the quality management system in the company, the quality manager’s tasks include the following:
- QM documentation: The entire QM process documentation.
- Quality: Key figures, evaluations and risk assessments as well as training.
- Incoming and outgoing goods: QM is responsible for inspecting incoming and outgoing goods.
- Test equipment: Test equipment monitoring, organization of calibrations and tests.
- ESD coordinator: responsible for ESD (electrostatic discharge) protection measures in electronics production.
- Audits: Internal and external audits of suppliers.
- Testify: Digital mapping of processes with Testify – from incoming and outgoing goods inspections to the documentation of recurring measurements in the ESD protection zone.
As Quality Manager, Holger Methe is also involved in other projects within the company. For example, he is involved in internal idea management and a current project on sustainability and corporate social responsibility.
Process landscape in the company
Quality – and therefore the functioning of quality processes – is a high priority at ekey. This is illustrated by a process map, which provides an overview of the most important processes in the company and shows how they are connected.
Introduction of better, digital processes!
As ekey is committed to ongoing development and continuous improvement, the decision was made to digitize test processes. This is where Testify comes into play: the tool corresponds exactly to this approach. Testify is already being used in several areas. For incoming and outgoing goods inspections as well as for occupational safety inspections.
Digital ESD tests.
The latest area of application is the documentation of recurring measurements in the ESD protection zone via Testify. These are tests in which the conductivity of surfaces in the production environment is measured. These must be carried out every six months or quarterly to ensure a safe environment for the electronic components.
Previously, these were documented in Excel. The challenge here was that different checks were carried out at different times. This made it difficult to maintain an overview.
Quality Management now maps these tests in Testify, where they are automatically instructed.
Test equipment management: Always up to date.
Holger Methe strives to design systems in such a way that errors cannot occur in the first place. This has also been achieved in test equipment management, where the use of invalid measuring equipment is prevented.
This was realized with the help of an interface between the test equipment database and Testify. The validity of test and measuring equipment is stored in a database at ekey and then synchronized with Testify. As soon as a piece of test equipment may no longer be used (is no longer valid), it can no longer be selected in Testify. This prevents errors from occurring.
Digitization of inspection instructions for incoming and outgoing goods.
Another example of a process improvement is the digital checklists for tests. Here, the processes have been made less error-prone by using Testify.
Before Testify was used, all employees had to check and calculate deviations themselves using a test sheet. This resulted in an assessment that only stated whether the product passed or failed the test. However, the exact deviations were not documented.
With Testify, the testing process is digitalized: Everything is managed and documented centrally. Employees are guided through the testing process step by step. The standard values are stored in the system, so employees enter their test values, the system compares them and indicates whether the values are correct.
The transfer of the test result is now no longer done manually, but automatically imported from Testify into the ERP system (incl. link to the test report).
Defect management: If a defect is discovered during an inspection, for example at goods receipt, it is recorded directly and forwarded to QA.
Data and reporting in quality management.
According to Holger Methe, one of the biggest advantages of digitizing processes is reporting – i.e. the ability to evaluate data. This provides quality management with a lot of additional information: All data can be viewed centrally, is fully traceable and can be easily read out.
“The ability to analyze data in detail is a major advantage that we have gained with Testify.”
For example, it is possible to evaluate in real time what defects there are in delivered products, what the priorities are for defects and much more. This also makes it transparent whether certain targets have been met. The data from Testify is also relevant for other departments – such as supplier evaluations for purchasing.
This insight into the day-to-day projects and tasks shows that quality management at ekey makes an important contribution to overall organizational development and the digitalization of processes.
