e-COA® Electronic Certificate of Analysis
Description
e-COA® provides a single source to process and store suppliers' material information. Statistically analyzing this information results in reduced overhead and improved productivity. You will see more timely information and complete supplier traceability since GSQA's e-COA® uses an electronic path to submit ASN/COA's versus paper based systems.
GSQA e-COA's® collect lot level information directly from the supplier. GSQA presents the information in a consistent usable fashion, and automatically calculates whether a process is statistically in control. GSQA supports many different paths to submit COA's, including: EDI, EDI Internet, XML, web browser, spreadsheet upload and fax. The e-COA® capability uses a SaaS model eliminating dedicated hardware and software.
Features and Benefits
- Simplified Connectivity – Electronically connecting suppliers streamlines information sharing, allowing you to focus on improved communications rather than misplaced faxes, saving time and money.
- Standard Presentation – e-COA® presents all lot level critical material information in a common format, eliminating missing or inconsistent data.
- Multiple Protocols – e-COA® Service accepts many different communication protocols, allowing suppliers numerous options for electronic COA delivery.
The Problem
Inside supplier companies and supply chain partners, people-skills vary. Workers in plants around the world act differently and their documents reflect that diversity.
Some suppliers only provide paper documentation. Some suppliers send COAs in different formats for the same material based on plant location. Those formats may include hand-written annotations and/or missing required data. In some cases suppliers try to accommodate customers with their requested formats by massaging digital data into an acceptable PDF. At the other end of the spectrum technology-enabled suppliers insist on computer-to-computer data transfers. The rest is in between. They may not want to change their current practices, most likely paper-based, or they are of a different mindset and recognize the future is here with electronic partnerships and want to participate somehow over the web, but do not have the skill set.
The receiving companies generally deal with this wide variation of supplier documentation by living with the resulting information “tower of Babel” and using manpower to decipher, store and retrieve supplier documentation.
How it Works
GSQA’s e-COA® provides a number of methods for suppliers to enter COA data into the GSQA portal. Some techniques are direct entry and some are electronically transmitted over the web to GSQA. Our customers require a range of technologies because each supply base is diverse when it comes to individual supplier technology assets.
Today GSQA offers a supplier quality manager 12 different ways for his/her suppliers to interact with the receiving company for required supplier documentation. The goal? Uniform data for tracking material quality and traceability for every plant, and global supplier quality performance managed over the web electronically at lower cost than today’s labor-intensive supplier quality processes.
Unique in its maturity and flexibility the GSQA e-COA®, once uploaded, provides not only shipping information but also critical material specification information by lot, enabling material analysis using standard statistical process control (SPC) methods.
GSQA transmission and format options include the following:
- EDI – Suppliers using EDI can send their COA data directly into GSQA using their current EDI protocols and software packages (AS2).
- EDI Internet – For suppliers that wish to eliminate EDI VAN charges, the e-COA® Service receives COA messages over the Internet in a variety of protocols.
- XML – The e-COA® Service gathers COA messages transmitted using XML messaging, allowing technologically advanced suppliers connectivity options with both current (AS2 and sFTP) and future protocols.
- On-line Services – Elemica and RubberNetwork offer their own transport/formats for their industry clients and GSQA can retrieve that information directly.
- Web Browser –The e-COA® Service's web browser interface offers an intuitive and user friendly replacement for spreadsheets, word processor documents and other paper-based methods of transmitting critical COA information.
- Direct keying is available with screens and labels in the language of the user.
- Spreadsheet contents can be copied & pasted into the electronic COA which speeds the direct entry of data.
- Even faster is the upload of a spreadsheet of COA test data
- COA and advanced ship notice data (ASN) can be output from a computer in a CSV format and uploaded via the GSQA portal.
- E-mail & Fax – EMNS offers a transcription service for suppliers in transition to an electronic means of transmitting COA information.
- Automatic document processing – (Fax image, e-mail image file, e-mail PDF) Although document scanning with optical character recognition (OCR) seems to be the easiest solution, it has inherent issues in quality and data extraction. While the technology for scanning/OCR has improved measurably, a document’s appearance quality still determines the accuracy of data capture. The EMNS auto-document capture service automatically polls fax numbers and e-mail addresses for candidate documents, utilizes a “learned format” analysis with scan-success probabilities, provides an easy-to-use edit functionality, and data flow structure directly into GSQA for high-quality data capture.
Manual text correction is often needed to increase OCR accuracy. While offered by EMNS, document-based data capture is only viable or cost effective on a large scale if the document preparation is performed and adhered to, including format, delivery, content and appearance. - Custom – Specialized input methods will be considered.
- Others – Contact your GSQA sales representative.
