Maximising Safety through Balanced Scorecard Metrics: How SQDCM Enhances Organisational Safety Goals?

October 24, 2024
sqdcm board
Employee Safety, the backbone of profitability and productivity of a manufacturing company, is not always about hard hats and signs. It is one of the significant elements of an organisation that directly enhances output and lower downtime. Effective use of SQDCM (Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost and Morale) boards that display key metrics, such as Safety incident reports, defect rates, delivery schedules, production costs, and morale indicators, helps achieve better organisational performance by maintaining a safe and productive work environment.

How does a safe workplace culture drive profitability?

The more Safety there is, the more efficient, focused, and engaged the employees become. In addition, companies avoid expensive accidents and regulatory penalties with their higher Safety ensuring practices.

But how can a manufacturer juggling other crucial areas, including Quality, Delivery, Cost, Morale, etc., keep track of Safety?

With the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) software- simple answer. Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is an all-in-one tool to monitor and improve Safety while ensuring quality and cost regulations remain on point.

Understanding the Balanced Scorecard

At various organisational levels, a Digital Balanced Scorecard aligns the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with the Company's strategic objectives and enables a high-performance culture. It gives multiple advantages to many industries, and in the case of the manufacturing sector, the digital balanced Scorecard drives profitability by enhancing production planning and outcomes. The visual representation features of the Balanced Scorecard enable the performance analysis of every key area of manufacturing. Hence, the leaders can recognise issues, trace progress and execute required actions immediately.

The key benefits of using Digital Balanced Scorecard in manufacturing include:

  • Provide continuous improvement
  • Enhance accountability
  • Promote transparency
  • Achieve strategic plans
  • Execute plans and goals effectively
  • Provide dynamic reports and charts
  • Transform data into meaningful insights
  • Streamline production plans and sales
  • Ensure customer satisfaction

How Balanced Scorecard Maintain Manufacturing metrics?

BSC Software has a critical feature- Visual management boards, a crucial communication tool in a lean environment, give you information immediately. Visual management boards in manufacturing include SQDCM, SQDCP, SQDCL, SQDCPS, ESQDCP, SQDCL, FCIL, etc.

Among this, SQDCM stands for Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost and Morale board that quickly conveys how the process performs against these five categories.

Safety: Ensure safe work culture by prioritising risk mitigation.

Quality: Enhance product quality by analysing defect rates, customer complaints and ensuring adherence to standards.

Delivery: Ensure the effectiveness of delivering products to customers.

Cost: Control expenses and increase profitability.

Morale: Reflects organisational culture, teamwork, employee satisfaction and retention.

Team leaders can develop resolution strategies based on root cause analysis using KPIs within SQDCM boards. The 'S' column of the SQDCM board represents Safety metrics and displays real-time Safety incidents. When metrics on the board are displayed in Green, it indicates a completed activity without issues. The specific activity corresponding to the metrics in Red indicates a severe issue. Amber indicates minor problem identification and actions to be taken.

For each criterion on the board there are specified measures. They are placed in the order, in a location viewable by both the employee and the managers. Let’s see how an SQDCM board works and what does it indicates.

Table with 6 Columns and 4 Rows
COLOUR SAFETY QUALITY DELIVERY COST/CUSTOMER MORALE
Green Zero accident No customer complaint Ontime Dispatch Zero defects at installation High team satisfaction
Amber Minor accident Problem identified Delayed Dispatch Defect resolved Some concerns raised
Red Major accident Customer complaint Line Stop Defect detected Low morale, high turnover


Features of Visual Management Boards

  • Easy to understand: Give a quick sense of each area
  • High visibility: Effortless to notice
  • Consistency: All boards are similar with minimum variation
  • Colour coding: Green colour indicates achieving the goal, and Red for miss.
  • Metrics monitoring: Measure the performance of a process by tracking metrics

Why do companies need a Balanced Scorecard to ensure Safety?

  • Enhance Safety Performance: Organisations quickly understand the areas need more improvement through the visual board.
  • Connect Safety goals with business objectives: Make sure that Safety is integrated with the overall business strategy, getting needful attention.
  • Lower accidents and injuries: Safety goals reduce the risk of accidents and enable a safe work environment.
  • Develop a Safety culture: Shared understanding of Safety goals provides continuous Safety management improvement.
  • Enhance stakeholder trust: By exhibiting a dedication to Safety through BSC, organisations can drive stakeholder trust and reputation.

Leveraging the Balanced Scorecard for Safety Management

The Safety metrics in BSC give a complete view of Safety performance by analysing vital Safety indicators around various organisational departments and levels. From the sources like employee logs and reports, the BSC gather and integrates the necessary data and analyses it with other performance areas, including operation and quality.

The Safety KPIs include metrics such as;

  • Safety violations
  • Near misses
  • Number of accidents
  • Injuries and missed works
  • Unsafe work practices
  • Safety glasses violations
  • Employee training session
  • Risk assessment
  • Proactive measures
Balanced Scorecard translates these KPIs into actionable insights by the measurement of reported incident frequency, root cause identification, and notification. The SQDCM board of BSC can visualises the Safety-related occurrences and frequencies. By giving alerts and notifications, BSC helps the organisation to take required corrective solutions. It also maintains a culture of Safety by enabling preventive measures and risk reduction. Apart from the colour coding incident reporting, it provides Safety KPI charts, Visual Safety Audits and Incident Trend visuals.

Integrating Safety Metrics into the SQDCM Framework

As a central source of information, the SQDCM board offers problem-solving by making a platform for the teams to brainstorm solutions and collaborate. The Safety component of the SQDCM can embed the Safety KPIs and make balanced focus on Safety alongside quality, delivery, cost, and morale. The mutually reinforcing aspect of each component upholds workplace Safety, ensuring product excellence while managing costs effectively.

Enhance your Organisational Safety Goals through the Integration of SQDCM and Balanced Scorecard Approaches

The SQDCM framework of the Balanced Scorecard drives continuous improvement in a manufacturing organisation by developing an open and transparent environment. Safety stands as one of the significant components of SQDCM, which boosts productivity and profitability through the reduction of accidents, engagement of employees, and avoidance of penalties.

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) offers a unified approach for ensuring Safety, besides other key metrics like Quality, Delivery, Cost, and Morale.

By integrating Safety KPIs into the SQDCM framework, manufacturers can attain a broad view of performance that supports continuous improvement and proactive decision-making.

Even though balancing Safety with other vital metrics has challenges, with the right tool, better results can be gained. The Data Point Balanced Scorecard remains an ideal solution for streamlining Safety and operational performance through its SQDCM board and other visual management techniques. Data Point Balanced Scorecards' dynamic dashboards and advanced analytics aid in achieving strategic, Safety and operational goals coherently.

FAQs

1. How does a digital balanced scorecard work to improve organisational performance?
At various organisational levels, a Digital Balanced Scorecard (BSC) align the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with the Company's strategic objectives and enables a high-performance culture. The BSC gives a holistic view of an organisation's site, department, program, team or employee performance.

2. How is the balanced Scorecard used to implement an organisation's strategy?
The Balanced Scorecard implement an organisation’s strategy by improving a company's internal operations through strategic communication and developing better external outcomes.

3. What is the key benefit of using a balanced scorecard at an organisation?
The key benefit of Balanced Scorecard is that it helps the companies to better align their organisational process with strategic goals.

4. What are the metrics of SQDCM?
The metrics in a SQDCM board are Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost and Morale.

5. What is the Sqcdp scorecard?
SQDCP (Safety, Quality, Cost, Delivery, and People) is a significant manufacturing tool for monitoring and tracking KPIs and essential metrics on the shop floor. It provides visual representation of the manufacturing process and provide continuous improvement efforts.

6. What is a Safety scorecard?
The Safety scorecard gives a complete view of Safety performance by analysing vital Safety indicators around various organisational departments and levels.
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