ETQ, part of Hexagon, the leading quality management system (QMS) provider, announced the 2023 winner and finalists for its annual ETQ Innovation Excellence Awards. ETQ customer, Trane Technologies, was selected for the winning project submission, followed closely by submissions from finalists Varian Medical Systems and Nutrien. 

The Innovation Excellence Awards were presented during the company’s annual Quality Vision customer conference, which took place live at Caesars Forum in Las Vegas last week.  The awards program spotlights customer ingenuity in using ETQ Reliance® in unique, creative and innovative ways to address challenges in quality and health and safety while unlocking significant business value to the organization. 

“It’s one of the toughest decisions of the year to try to name a winner among many outstanding customer implementations of ETQ Reliance, since most customers take advantage of the system’s flexibility to configure to their specific requirements,” said Jamie Fernandes, Chief Product Officer, ETQ. “Our judges were impressed by Trane Technologies’ use of ETQ Reliance to minimize the financial impact of nonconforming materials. And, they were equally impressed with Varian Medical Systems and Nutrien’s ability to optimize and tailor the solution to help meet key safety and compliance quality goals.” 

Through their innovative projects outlined below, Trane Technologies, Varian Medical Systems and Nutrien demonstrated significant achievement in the award criteria, including:   

•    Very high relevance to ETQ’s core quality and safety markets

•    Measurable and meaningful return on investment (ROI) 

•    Demonstrated expertise in maximizing Reliance’s configurability and integration capabilities

Trane Technologies Builds a Better Nonconforming Materials Solution

Trane Technologies is one of the world’s leading climate innovators, and through its portfolio of environmentally responsible products and services, it brings efficient and sustainable climate solutions to buildings, homes and transportation. The business was looking for a better way to recover money due from suppliers as a result of nonconforming materials (NCM).

To enable better visibility across internal functions and its suppliers, Trane Technologies reimagined its NCM process and integrated core enterprise systems to its ETQ Reliance NCM application. The team can now quickly identify issues, as well as better manage financial transactions in order to reach its goal of realizing 100-percent financial recovery. The application has allowed it to compress standard cycle times, improve its recovery method, realize faster and more consistent return revenue, all while enabling better overall supplier communication and engagement.

Varian Medical Systems Ensures Compliance with Field Action Management 

Varian Medical Systems, a Siemens Healthineers Company, is a leading manufacturer of medical devices and software for treating cancer and other medical conditions. As a global life sciences company, it must adhere to FDA regulations and those of other regulatory bodies around the world. In order to enable better compliance, it knew it needed to streamline core field action processes.

Varian developed a Field Action Management module for ETQ Reliance to digitize and standardize key processes, such as field action determination, reportability assessment, and action Items containing reports, communications with regulatory agencies and others. Implementing the module in ETQ also enabled it to integrate with other quality records, such as meeting records or complaints and risk assessments, to more easily gather information supporting the field action.

Nutrien Meets Transportation Safety Goals with ETQ

Nutrien a global agriculture company and the world’s largest provider of crop inputs and services, operates across 800+ retail locations throughout the U.S. As a U.S. carrier, an integration between the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration database was needed to reduce the time spent documenting and reporting roadside violations and corrective actions. Nutrien centralized the DOT Commercial Motor Vehicle (CMV) workflow in ETQ Reliance to enable comprehensive quality data and insights for improving driver safety. 

This initiative has eliminated the need for manual processes, streamlined workflows and disciplinary actions, and supports the company’s goal of safety excellence. Nutrien estimates that the integration can eliminate up to 15 percent of the time previously spent documenting roadside violations and tracking associated data. 

In addition to Trane Technologies, Varian Medical Systems and Nutrien, ETQ received submissions for innovative uses and customizations of ETQ Reliance from world-class customers in a variety of industries such as life sciences, healthcare, agriculture and consumer packaged goods. 

For more information, visit www.etq.com.