Case study: How Kingspan improved multi-site compliance with Q-Pulse

Kingspan is a global manufacturer of insulated panels and associated construction products. Starting as a small engineering and contracting business back in 1965, Kingspan now has over 11,000 employees across 5 continents. They take pride in branding themselves as “a global company with local roots.” With a strong vision for innovation and sustainability, Kingspan leads the way in creating energy-efficient buildings with a view that no one should have to choose between efficiency, sustainability, style and safety.

With innovation at the heart of every product, project and through every stage of the manufacturing process, it is essential for Kingspan to consider quality, health, safety and environmental (QHSE) legislation compliance throughout every decision. Being audited against ISO standards, a system was required to bring together Kingspan’s QHSE management into one centralised, cohesive solution for all sites to access.

 

Kingspan have multiple sites across the globe and are expanding. Working across 5 continents with over 11,000 employees, Kingspan must ensure that they are able to comply with legislation in the various locations in which they operate. They needed a system that would help employees understand the legislation and check they are compliant against each.

Paul McGowan, HSE Divisional Manager at Kingspan Panels, had responsibility for implementing a management system that would help him to carry out compliance audits across all sites and allow him to effectively advise and support site management. Kingspan selected Ideagen’s Q-Pulse suite of products, namely Q-Pulse Quality Management Software and Q-Pulse Law for managing their quality, health, safety and environmental management processes. Within Kingspan, Paul says “A number of our sites use Q-Pulse for document control, incident reporting, internal audit actions and have done so for many years. Q-Pulse is a very powerful tool which provides secure document management, allows other sites across the globe to share documents and provides one area to record and manage incidents.”

When operating across 5 continents it can be a huge challenge to ensure compliance with legislation in each jurisdiction. The Q Pulse Law Module is an EHS legislation and compliance content service that provides a summarised library which can be filtered to the exact legislation for specific countries and regions. This enables Kingspan to understand each location’s legislation and what is required for full compliance.

 

Paul added: “Q-Pulse Law is used for two reasons; first it allows each site to have a regularly updated legal register specific to their requirements, which allows them to measure compliance with the built in Check List. Secondly, I use Q-Pulse Law in my role to establish local laws and verify compliance as part of the audit. The system is also used to be directed to the statute books and to be able to read the laws for further knowledge and compliance checks”

“The main benefit of Q-Pulse Law is that it provides those onsite, who do not have a legal degree or capacity to research and understand the law, with a check list which, when completed, provides a good standard of compliance for our sites.”

“Q-Pulse can be accessed anywhere in the world so, at a glance, it is easy for me to establish legal compliance levels for each of the sites on the law module” explains Paul. “We can also audit document reviews, and actions outstanding from incidents from one location and even track it down to individual owners. The system provides e-mail notification and reminders and has helped us share and monitor the management systems.”

As well as being able to access from all sites at any point, Q-Pulse also allows Kingspan to carry out audits, manage incidents and provides notifications and reminders to action-owners. This ensures that individuals take ownership of actions, incidents are managed effectively and management have full visibility of any sites with recurring incidents or non-conformances. This is hugely beneficial, particularly for Health, Safety and Environmental management across all sites. Currently, Kingspan comply with 5 of the ISO standards – 18001, 14001, 9001, 6001 and 50001. Q-Pulse is used to demonstrate compliance and continually improve business activities in relation to each standard.

Paul concluded: “All of these standards require some sort of management of the procedures to regularly review, update and record the changes; Q-Pulse does this automatically for us.”

Q-Pulse supports Kingspan with their overall vision of sustainability, both for customers and for Kingspan itself, as they can clearly demonstrate compliance to ISO 14001 and ascertain how environmentally sustainable, they are operating. In addition, as they work towards ISO 45001, Q-Pulse will efficiently and smoothly support the transition.