Adisseo customer testimonial: improving collaborative action plan management using IDhall
Adisseo is a major name worldwide in animal feed, and is perpetually innovating thanks to its own research centres. To meet the requirements of the ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001 standards to which the R&I (Research and Innovation) laboratories and production plants are certified in particular, Adisseo’s R&I decided to improve the management of its action and progress plans in 2018. Read how Bernard Bouza, head of Quality, Scientific Intelligence and Portfolio Management at Adisseo, appreciates the benefits secured by implementing our IDhall solution.
About Adisseo
Adisseo is a world leader in additives for animal feed.
The firm makes use of its ten research and innovation centres, along with production sites in Europe, the USA, China and Thailand, to devise, produce, market and sell its nutrition solutions for sustainable animal feed.
Its workforce is 2,345 strong, serving more than 3,900 customers in a hundred countries through a globe-spanning distribution network. Adisseo generated turnover of more than €1.51 billion in 2020.
Adisseo is one of the main subsidiaries of China National BlueStar, itself a leading light in the Chinese chemicals industry with some 20,800 employees and turnover in excess of €7.5 billion in 2020.
Is there any way to improve on managing action plans in Excel?
Adisseo employees used to monitor their action plans in various, but separate, ways. Consequently, each laboratory developed its own work without really sharing anything with the others. As in many other businesses, the number of separate Excel files swelled over time, such that it became impossible to enable other labs to benefit from the progress made by any given team.
Although the spreadsheets were optimised to the maximum, using them wasted both time and effort. Their sheer volume made it more complicated to progress with innovations with each day that passed. Analysis was limited and cross-referencing data was near-impossible. In addition, the complexity of data entry and total lack of sharing created an increasingly risky situation. It was therefore crucial to find an action plan management system that could be shared by all the laboratories to harmonise practices, make audits more secure, and accelerate progress plans across the entire R&I department.
Selecting IDhall to manage action plans
After examining the various solutions available on the market, Bernard Bouza came to test IDhall and he quickly saw the system’s great flexibility as regards managing different action plans. It was very straightforward to customise fields and lists to precisely meet the specific requirements of each R&I team. It was an important factor as, while the objective was for everyone to use the same system, each laboratory was still using its own master data and therefore needed to be able to add its work into the system easily. The demo of the IDhall solution to staff given by Bernard Bouza provided reassurance that the system was simple and intuitive, and persuaded them to start using IDhall in 2018.
To successfully induce all teams to use a new, single repository for action plans instead of different bespoke Excel spreadsheets, it was important for everyone to start by using their own data and environment to ensure a smooth change management process. The repository set up within IDhall at the outset was therefore very comprehensive and highly diversified, but R&I teams gradually harmonized their practices to bring about convergence on common plans that further simplified use as well as information sharing.
What benefits have been obtained so far?
The first audits showed that choosing IDhall has proven highly satisfactory for all of Adisseo’s R&I teams. First of all, when the laboratory at the Centre of Expertise and Research in Nutrition (CERN) was inspected to renew its accreditation for animal experimentation for scientific purposes, there was not enough historical data in IDhall, and it was necessary to import data from Excel files. Humanperf found an appropriate solution to quickly achieve this. Next, the new way of coordinating and describing actions was greatly appreciated by the local authority department for social cohesion and protection of communities, (which now includes veterinary services), during its first inspection. It is now quick and easy to provide a full review of the animal welfare measures taken over a year.
Another very satisfying example occurred during the certification audit, where the use of IDhall was noted as a strength as regards tracking and assessing all the action plans. The auditor had in fact questioned the team on certain issues and asked for evidence of actions taken in respect of each one. Applying a filter in IDhall was enough to show all the actions undertaken for the issues concerned. This ease of access to information has provided genuine credibility.
Since Adisseo’s R&I staff reorganised the plans and classifications, it is now very straightforward to cross-reference data and produce all the reports and analyses needed, which was previously impossible with Excel files. All data relating to R&I activities is now consolidated and IDhall plays a genuine part in bringing teams together.