Woods Group Enhances Efficiency with SoftExpert’s Solutions

Woods Group, a leader in agricultural innovation, has successfully transformed its document management and quality control processes through the implementation of SoftExpert solutions. This strategic move has resulted in substantial efficiency improvements, aligning with the growing demands of the agricultural sector for streamlined operations and enhanced productivity.

Biggest Challenges - Too much time spent on non value added work

Control of Master Documents was costly

Quality documents such as SOPs, Work Instructions, forms and product technical documents were stored on 4 file servers, one for each division. Revisions were done manually on each server and the quality team had to copy, change and re-publish documents as links in a document control excel sheet. All of this took a lot of time and created a high risk of manual errors. Quality Audits, such as GMP and SQF, were managed in excel spreadsheets and the results were manually consolidated into a powerpoint presentation for the leadership team.

Managing Non Conformities was inefficient

Non - Conformances were logged in an excel spreadsheet, and manually consolidated into graphs for management presentations.

Managing Safety Incidents was manual

Safety-related incidents were completed on a printed form, hand written and copied and filed on a server location and added to another tab on the excel spreadsheet for further manual inclusion in management reports.

Batch Release Records are not centralized

The positive release program of products to undergo 3rd party independent testing was managed in another excel document, and manually transferred into the management powerpoint presentation.

Reporting to Management was time consuming

The management reports were created by each of the quality department team members, responsible for each location. These individual power points were manually consolidated by the Technical Services Manager into a single powerpoint for management attention.

Solution - A Comprehensive Approach to Automation and Efficiency

The top priority was to implement SoftExpert Document control to create a single source of truth and an automated document creation and revision process. This involved migrating all master documents, defining clear attributes for searching, and creating specific document types to streamline the review and approval phases. A Document Portal was developed to automate management reporting, allowing the leadership team to access quality management review data effortlessly via mobile devices, thereby eliminating manual work, costs, and delays. This data is available on the mobile device. Using the SoftExpert business process management component, the non-conformance process was interactively designed and built, digital forms integrated and automated. The process flowed from the Technical Services team members to the Technical Services manager, with the option to push the approval to senior management, if investments were needed outside of the delegations of authority. A non-conformance reporting portal was configured, to create visibility to the management team. The SoftExpert digital Audit management solution was then implemented, configuring each requirement, defining the requirements audit criteria and overall Audit result criteria and rolling out training for the mobile application, which can be used when there is no network connectivity such as when “in the shed”. Audit result reporting was then configured in the SoftExpert integrated portals. Finally, the manual batch release process was designed and implemented, automating the forms and process for creating, recording and receiving the external certificates for each product. An automated email was integrated into the process that sends a pass or fail email to the impacted team members. This automation re-used the product information, such as batch number and best before date from the digital form, eliminating manual work and risk of typing errors.

Results - Enhancing Productivity with Streamlined Processes and Centralized Document Access

In the fiercely competitive agricultural sector, where precision and efficiency are everything, Woods Group has revolutionized its operations by automating document control and quality management. Leveraging SoftExpert’s comprehensive suite, they have centralized document management, automated non-conformance processes, and streamlined audit management. This strategic move has empowered the Technical Services team, boosting productive time by a remarkable 18.9%. Over five years, this translates to an impressive 10,000 hours of high-value work recouped from previously manual processes.

Other intangible results include:

Reduce the need to buy more server space due to growing document/files needed to be stored.
Central document system that can be accessed by all staff from multiple sites.

As agricultural practices evolves, Woods Group remains at the cutting edge, employing advanced technology to meet global nutritional demands while honoring their commitment to sustainability and community support. Future plans with SoftExpert involve automating processes for additional departments such as Seed and Workplace Health and Safety, and introducing the Calibration Module.