Civacon Merges Quality and Corrective Action Processes with i-Sight Quality and Correction Action Software from Customer Expressions

Ottawa, Canada – August 13, 2010 - Customer Expressions Corp. (www.customerexpressions.com) announced today that Civacon has implemented the i-Sight Corrective Action (CAPA) Software solution to improve complaint resolution times and drive quality assurance.

As consumers, we rarely think about where products come from or how they got there safely. But much of what we use and consume on a daily basis has gone through many steps and precautions along the way.

On a global scale, Civacon's vents, valves and other equipment help safeguard against petroleum, liquid and chemical spills, and get dry bulk commodities to their destinations. Civacon is the world's leading provider of cargo tank components and systems designed for the safe, profitable handling and transporting of hazardous bulk products.

The Challenge
At Civacon, customer feedback and returned merchandise drive product quality and process improvements. The company keeps detailed records of any product problems or process errors to identify root causes and take corrective action.

Previously, the company logged issues in Excel spreadsheets and in its enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. Complaints went into one place and return merchandise authorizations (RMAs) into another, making reporting a manual, hours-long process.

"We wanted to combine complaints and RMAs into one program to be able to report on issues by type and get usable information to make needed improvements," said Bryan VanDeVyvere, Quality & Process Improvement Manager at Civacon.

The Solution
VanDeVyvere's team evaluated solutions, including the quality assurance module of the company's ERP system and i-Sight Quality and Correction Action Software from Customer Expressions. Where the former lacked desired functionality, i-Sight would enable Civacon to merge quality and corrective action in one, web-based application.

"Pulling our three processes together – complaints, RMAs and correction action – will save a lot of time," VanDeVyvere said. "We don't have to maintain three different areas of data in three different places."

Ease of reporting alone sold VanDeVyvere's team on i-Sight. "Reporting was one of the biggest deciding factors for i-Sight," he said. "It will be easy to tailor nice reports to everyone's needs depending on the department, without having to trouble IT people."

Civacon will implement i-Sight at its Kansas City location, and at Midland (sister company) in Chicago. Working closely with professionals from Customer Expressions, they are configuring the software to integrate the company's workflows, approval processes and notifications.

About a dozen employees will have full i-Sight access, while departments such as sales, quality, manufacturing, engineering, materials and outside account managers can enter issues directly regarding complaints and RMAs. With the software, all issues follow a specific pathway after entry, ensuring Civacon responds to them in a consistent, timely manner.

"We have had to rely on one person to filter through and assign issues," VanDeVyvere said. "Now i-Sight will automatically assign them to the correct person, giving us a more streamlined flow."

Whereas VanDeVyvere pulled together reports on a monthly basis before, the ease of reporting with i-Sight makes more frequent analysis possible.

With custom reports already set up in the software, running them weekly will be a matter of a few clicks. Additionally, they will be emailed automatically to specific managers.

In the future, Civacon plans to add a public web form to enable customers to enter their own issues online.

Results
The ease of reporting with i-Sight will put actionable information into the hands of Civacon's teams more often. In turn, they can identify trends and take corrective action, thereby decreasing complaints, costly returns and risk.

"Our overall goal is to take care of the customer in a timely manner. If we react quickly to customer issues, we will get repeat business," VanDeVyvere said. "Information we receive from the customer can help us improve the reliability of our product designs to benefit everyone."

About Customer Expressions
Based in Ottawa, Canada, Customer Expressions (www.customerexpressions.com) is a leading provider of web based complaint software, case management software and investigation software (www.investigationsystem.com). Customer Expressions has gained an international reputation for best-in-class software to optimize the management of various business processes. The privately held firm provides i-Sight, integrated case management software for investigations, call tracking, customer service, complaint handling (www.complaintsoftware.com), corrective and preventive action management (CAPA Management), and other business processes that require case management. For further information on compliance, ethics, HR and workplace investigation issues, view our company blog at i-sight.com.

For further information, please contact:
Joe Gerard, Vice-President, Sales & Marketing
800-465-6089 or media@customerexpressions.com