How BMC Analysis are managing their assets and document acknowledgement

I'm joined today by Laureline from BMC Analysis. Hi Laur, could you just explain a little bit about who you are and what your company does?

Yeah, so I'm personally looking after quality and technical as well, and actually safety now. And we are a laboratory specialised in base metal concentrate analysis. So yeah, typically we receive samples from different origins – traders, miners – and thereafter figuring out, obviously, the metal contents of those samples so that they can obviously buy or sell them. So yeah, in essence, that's what we do. And which means yeah, we employ all sorts of different analytical methods, obviously, in order to do that. And in the process, obviously when I joined, I was in charge of getting the ISO 17025 accreditation, which is a quality management system, an international standard which I know you maybe aren't as familiar with because you come from an ISO 9001, ISO 45001, and ISO 14001 background, but there are some big similarities between them. And that's a big part of why we wanted to obviously start using Q-Hub.

So yeah, okay, awesome. What did you use before then to manage sort of your health and safety processes?

Local drive and then Excel and Word documents, pretty much, is all we had at our disposal. Yeah.

We get that a lot. You're only quite a young business, like the director started the business in 2020, but then really kicked it off with actual samples going through the door in 2021, so it's only about four years old. Yeah, but we've gone through quite a lot in those four years and we're growing quite quickly now. But yeah, that explains a bit why we started off with what we started off with. And yeah, absolutely. I mean, even we come across businesses that have been established for many, many years and they're still using Excel spreadsheets. So yeah, it's a great thing that you guys have been able to progress very quickly onto something that's made your workflows easier. So could you just touch on some of the challenges that you were finding with your previous methods?

Yeah, so one of the ones that straight away I was struggling with was the loss of document acknowledgements. Because obviously, with that very local sort of system, basically I had to print sheets just to make people sign the fact that they had read a procedure. And you know how it is – people will forget to sign it, you're forever chasing people, that sheet can get lost, and then you lose all that information, etc. So it wasn't the easiest and most effective way to monitor acknowledgements and demonstrate that it got done, obviously. Non-conformities as well – making sure that non-conformities were being progressed, reviewed, and obviously closed in a timely manner was made difficult with again this local system. And then yeah, anything to do with approvals really – even the likes of approval, how do we evidence something has been approved, etc., etc. So yeah, those were the main challenges at that point really. And yeah, the fact that it would rely a lot on me to chase people, to notify them, to again think about following up on actions, etc. So yeah.

Can you describe how your company currently uses Q-Hub?

Yeah, so as I said, the Document Hub was one of the first one we implemented basically in the business. Because yeah, even though we're fairly small and yes we're fairly young, because we're accredited we do have quite a fair amount of documents that we need to keep up, obviously, for maintaining our quality management system. So yeah, that was one of the first things we implemented, and again in the hope that it would help me, obviously, monitor acknowledgements and then chase people easier, etc. And obviously it's been proven. The fact with the "read and understood" task that gets sent – what was good as well is initially some of the setup wasn't quite right for us. Like I wanted to, for example, be able to send a "read and understood" task as I was publishing a procedure for the first time, and that didn't used to happen. And then I've requested an improvement, which obviously has been implemented, and that's been done. So that's improved quite a lot. So yeah, that was the first thing we looked at.

And then quite quickly, as I say, non-conformities – we implemented in the Process Hub. So that allowed me to obviously have that structure where the non-conformity gets raised, someone gets to investigate what the issue is, and then someone else can then look after actions, etc. So it's the flexibility of having different people involved in the process and for it to be quite clear where everyone is responsible for what, be able to put due dates, escalation systems in place, etc. So yeah, we did that.

And then the next one was the Audit Hub. Because again, as we're accredited, we do conduct internal audits on a regular basis. So again, it was quite useful to have that in there, again to be able to monitor better the schedule, things getting done on time, establish requirements, make sure everybody applies the same – again, from my perspective, make sure I can easily review where the audits are at, if I agree with the findings, etc., etc. And again, the fact that then these findings automatically could be fed into our non-conformity process that we set up in the Process Hub – so again, it was the fact that we could have that sort of closed loop where one path feeds into the next, and then we can just carry on the work that way.

So yeah, after that really, we started looking more at the Asset Hub because obviously we've got a number of assets on site which needs obviously regular calibrations. We need to be able to record all the relevant details of those assets, etc. So we implemented that next. I'm not necessarily showing you – it's not very confidential – but yeah, we currently have about... it's more than 114, actually, because we've got some duplicate numbers in there. But we've done – even though since then I've raised another ticket for an improvement – because in my opinion, overall, you shouldn't be able to create assets with the same number, which we were able to up until recently. And I think it's been sorted out. So again, another good thing – quite reactive with those things, which is really good.

And then we started using more the Register Hub because again we've got to evidence training and obviously keep track of yeah, we train on but the level of competency. And what was really good with that, again, where I was personally struggling with before, is that those competencies have an expiry date. So the way like, obviously, before it basically relied on me again going through the documents and identifying what is about to expire, and then obviously trigger some actions. Whereas again, in the Register, you can have that automation in place, which obviously is really useful. Because then I don't necessarily have to worry about checking it myself. As long as it's set up, it will send me notifications. So it just makes it a lot easier.

So yeah, that's pretty much how we've used Q-Hub so far. Obviously, we don't use KPI Hub a great deal, but I see us doing more of that because of all those different modules, it's quite easy then to have KPIs and track those KPIs. So as I say, we haven't necessarily done a great deal on that, but I can see us using that more in the future.

We actually also started using Form Hub a lot more recently. And again, it's along the lines of the training I was mentioning. Because typically our training would include the likes of you need to read such procedure, and then we expect you to maybe sign a particular form and then answer a few questions. And again, the forms were actually really easy to use in that respect because the procedures are already uploaded on Q-Hub. So it was just a way to capture that "really understood" task within that process. So yeah, it's worked really well. It's only been recently implemented, but so far it's working quite well for us.

So yeah, and then more personally, I've started working on the Work Hub as well. I've started creating even my to-do list in there because again, I've got about a million things to do all the time. So yeah, I went from using Post-it notes – well, I still use notes, but I do try and record the main sort of actions I meant to complete in that to-do list. So again, it helps me track sort of where I'm up to, again get reminders from Q-Hub that oh, I said to do that by this time and it's not been completed yet. So yeah, that's sort of an overview of yeah what we've done so far with Q-Hub.

Fabulous. Yeah, it sounds like it's really helped to streamline your workflows and being able to also have the hubs communicate with each other and you're able to link them, and things are you can automate a lot of things that you had to do manually before. So sounds like it's saving you a bit of time, which is great.

Oh definitely, yeah. I don't think currently we would cope as well as we are if we didn't have all of that in place. And as I said, the more I learn to use Q-Hub – because I mean, there are still things that some of the automation, sometimes I'm sort of struggling to understand what's the best way to set them up, etc. If I'm being honest. But as I get more familiar with all those aspects, yeah, I tend to use more and more because I find it really good.

And again, my aim is we still sort of are in between that local drive I mentioned before and Q-Hub. But ideally, at some point, I just want everything to go through Q-Hub. So yeah, that's my aim, obviously, in the very near future – to completely get rid of anything to do with local drive, just purely go on Q-Hub. So yeah, it's nice. It's been good. Definitely.

Yeah, so sounds like you're sort of still in the transition phase. How have you found that transition? Have you found Q-Hub to be helpful during this process?

Completely, yeah, yeah. As I say, it's just made my own personal life a lot easier. And I think it's not just me. Just to give you a simple example: so we more recently also started publishing HR policies in Q-Hub, and then our HR department was asking me, are people actually reading those procedures? Would you be able to give me a bit of insight on that? Typically, if I didn't have Q-Hub, I probably would struggle to get that fairly quickly. It took me literally two minutes there in Q-Hub to just filter through, obviously, all the procedures I've got published, that list, send that to them, and be like, yeah, this is where we're up to, this is how many people have not read it yet, blah blah blah. It was just really convenient. Because again, obviously, it dates everything as well, so you can see, obviously, the sort of people that tend to read the procedure quite quickly and then the ones that constantly don't. So again, it really helps us capture sometimes where maybe there will be some struggles – like, is it because someone just doesn't feel like they have the time to go and read those documents? So yeah, it's just a great tool, basically.

Yeah, what benefits have you seen since you started using Q-Hub?

Yes. So it's the automation, obviously, that's included in it. As I said, the sort of notification when you publish something, when you obviously issue a task to someone, they're going to be notified. So yeah, the notification side of Q-Hub is very useful. The interconnection between the hubs as we discussed – where obviously, as we start linking some aspects, it just nicely fits together. And again, if something gets completed – like, if within a form you get sent different tasks, they get completed, overall, you can then choose to automate the completion of the form itself, etc. So it's all that, yeah, as they say, automation, notification side of things, that's made it easy.

I guess what's quite useful, even though I don't use it too much, is also the fact that you can sort of personalise the access that people get, the dashboards, etc. And also like the restriction – if you can have some confidential information in some parts, because it's quite easy to restrict the access, obviously, through, you know, the parameters in the different hubs, etc. So yeah, all of that's been really positive.

And as I said, one thing I found quite positive from the start is the after-sales service – like the customer service – where I was told from early on that obviously if we had any sort of suggestion for improvement, any issue, yeah, we could raise tickets. And yet, overall, I've been quite happy with the response time and the sort of improvements that have been implemented afterwards. So it's always nice to know that our feedback is taken on board and it's been addressed. So yeah, that's the positive note on that.

Oh absolutely, yeah, we really appreciate any suggestions or feedback from clients. And as you've said yourself, we take them on board and we try to implement improvements within the platform that benefits everybody as well. So overall, you're helping us to make our platform better. So we really appreciate that. So would you say, sort of along the lines of, has using the platform, has it helped save you time, has it streamlined your processes, anything like that?

I would definitely say so, yes. For me personally, yeah, 100%. I wouldn't be able to measure it as such because it's not something I've only kept track of. I know I think again you've got that tool in Q-Hub where you can like have a timer how long you spend on a task, etc. I've not done that because again it's not something we've necessarily put too much effort into monitoring and improving, etc. But no, I can confidently say yeah that yes, it's definitely streamlined a lot of things for us. As I say, if anything, the tracking of the training records, etc., it's just made it that much easier to manage.

So would you recommend Q-Hub to others?

Yeah, yeah, would yeah, quite happily, yeah. Particularly because let's be honest as well, I think cost-wise it's really good. Because as you can imagine, when we're looking at such systems, obviously we reached out to different companies, etc., and yeah, you were a lot more affordable than anybody else. And again, I've not, not to say I've obviously seen or used the other platforms, but again, I don't have many complaints about Q-Hub. I mean, it's been really good. Again, I like the flexibility of it. As I said, I like the fact that yeah, if something doesn't quite work, we can feed that back to you and you're going to like generally look into it and implement a change if you can, obviously, and depending on how big the change may be. So yeah, in that sense, I think it's been really good. Because again, we're a growing company and we couldn't afford necessarily to spend like thousands of pounds a month. So it's been really like brilliant in terms of yeah, the cost versus the benefits – it's been great.

Oh fab, I'm glad to hear that. So then, last question: what tips would you give to somebody who is new to using Q-Hub?

That's a good question. Get some training like I did, which usually you would get in Q-Hub. I would say build a good relationship with you guys because obviously it's always good to be able to just reach out. I know with Ian and Ethan, I have more than once sort of like WhatsApp them or pick up the phone. It's quite nice to just have that possibility to just quickly go through something and then maybe get the answer straight away, you know. So yeah, I guess that applies to anything really. But yeah, I would say training. And then probably, as you plan to have that training done, making sure that you've got some of your documentation, some of your forms, etc., ready to demonstrate sort of what you would like. Because I know it's helped me sort of get a grasp on automation and yeah, how to use different fields, etc. So yeah, probably that's what I'd suggest someone do when they're new to Q-Hub – being prepared.

Yeah, exactly, because it does get, yeah, it does take a little bit of getting used to. As I said, I didn't find it was like unsurmountable or anything like that. But yeah, there are still a few things where I'm sometimes still slightly unsure what is the best way, obviously, to get whatever thing I want done, done. But yeah, I think it's like anything – when it's new, it takes a bit of time to get used to, you know. The way things are set up, but yeah, upon that, no.

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