Newcastle-based SQCDP.co.uk is behind an app and software-as-a-service platform that allows manufacturers to remove problem paperwork from their factory areas.
An alternative to hardware-derived, expensive smart factory solutions, it connects teams rather than machines.
This makes data flow live between teams and maintains visibility when there are problems. Teams are more efficient and use their data to analyse cause and improve long term.
The firm is the brainchild of Stephen Mitchell, a former maintenance and facilities manager who was working at a large defence manufacturer when COVID brought the inefficiencies of paper-based systems into sharp focus.
The SQCDP process comes from lean manufacturing in the 60s and 70s, where they boiled things down to the lowest common denominator: S is for safety, a measure of accidents, incidents, near misses, observations; Q for quality of the products; C for cost control; D for delivery of products against a target; and P for people – is the company using the right number of people in the process?
As ‘Mitch’ explains: “It works as a system, but when deployed manually through paper and whiteboards, it fails the business because there’s so much processing in there.”