Case Study

How an Advanced Aerospace and Defence Composite Manufacturer Modernizes Quality with eQMS.

CASE STUDY
How an Advanced Aerospace and Defence Composite Manufacturer Modernizes Quality with eQMS.

Challenge

With aerospace and defense customers imposing increasingly stringent requirements, the organization needed a Quality Management System capable of supporting multi-standard compliance, audit readiness, and future international expansion, without increasing headcount.

For over 20 years, the company operated a manual, folder-based QMS, built on Word and Excel, supported by a highly structured but increasingly rigid quality manual.


Updating a single document required:

    • Multiple manual steps
    • Moving files across up to 5 different folders

~40% of the Quality Manager's time was spent purely on:

    • Uploading
    • Moving
    • Re-publishing documents

Heavy reliance on individuals created operational risk:

    • If the Quality Manager was on leave, quality activities effectively stopped

Auditors increasingly challenged:

    • Excel-based change tracking
    • Lack of clear audit trails
    • Uncertainty over who changed what and when

With an upcoming AS9100 audit, and with Aerospace & Defence target customers indicating a strong preference for certification, the existing system became a major operational and commercial blocker. No single person had full visibility or access across the entire quality system, increasing operational risk and dependency on manual coordination.


CEO:

About

This customer is an advanced composite materials manufacturer operating across industrial, medical, and aerospace & defence markets. The company develops and supplies advanced materials for demanding applications where quality, traceability, and compliance are critical.

Industry:

Advanced Composite Materials


Industry Affiliations and Standards:

ISO 9001, ISO 13485, AS9100


Market mix:

~80% Industrial | ~20% Medical | Aerospace & Defence projected to grow to 30-40% within 5 years


Company size:

Up to 200 employees


Locations:

Europe (with planned US expansion)
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The Search for a Modern eQMS

Recognizing that the manual, status-quo approach was no longer sustainable, the company identified that a move to a modern eQMS was essential in order to:

    • Simplify operations
    • Reduce manual workload
    • Avoid unnecessary recruitment
    • Allow the team to focus on higher-value activities

The company then undertook a highly impressive thorough evaluation:

    • 30 eQMS platforms reviewed
    • 12-15 deep-dive demos
    • Shortlisted to 9, then 3, before selecting Trackmedium eQMS

The evaluation was informed by prior experience with rigid enterprise eQMS platforms, which helped clarify what the business did not want:

    • Over-automation
    • Fixed document naming conventions that reduced documents to meaningless numeric references
    • Loss of flexibility in how the eQMS is structured
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Solution

Trackmedium enabled a phased, module-by-module rollout, allowing the company to adopt the platform at its own pace, unlike other platforms that require full system implementation upfront due to tightly coupled modules.

CEO

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Modules deployed:
Document Control
Control, automate, and track your entire document lifecycle. Ensure compliance, assign training, and eliminate manual work in one centralized, secure platform built for regulated, quality-focused teams.
Training Management
Keep your workforce compliant and audit-ready with automated, role-based training that ensures the right people get the right training at the right time.
Corrective Action Management
Automate and optimize your Corrective Action process to reduce risk, boost efficiency, and maintain compliance. All while connecting seamlessly with your broader eQMS.
Nonconformance Management (Non-Conformance Reporting)
Identify, manage, and resolve nonconformances with speed and accuracy. Trackmedium eQMS gives you full visibility and control over every quality event while connecting seamlessly with Corrective Action, risk, and temporary deviation workflows.
RMA Management (Returns Management )
Record information about returned materials including receiving, inspection and disposition.
Standards & Compliance (Custom Module)
Ensure adherence to regulatory requirements, industry standards, and internal policies with clarity and control. The Trackmedium eQMS Compliance Obligations Module provides full visibility into compliance obligations, enabling organizations to efficiently identify, document, and track requirements while maintaining accurate and up-to-date records. It supports consistent monitoring and structured documentation, helping teams stay aligned with quality expectations and prepared for inspections.
Supplier Management
This module manages and evaluates suppliers by storing their profiles, contact details, addresses, and related documents (such as NDAs and contracts), while also supporting supplier qualification and risk assessment. It tracks active and inactive suppliers, determines their approval status, and makes approved suppliers available for use across the system.

Results
    Enhanced Operational Efficiency

  • Manual document administration reduced by up to 40%

  • Quality resources redirected from administration to value-added activities

    • Improved Audit Readiness

  • Document retrieval times reduced by up to 60%

  • Clear, defensible audit trails for:

    • Document changes
    • Training records
    • CAPA actions
    • Reduced Operational Risk

  • No single-person dependency for quality operations

  • Business continuity maintained during leave or peak audit periods

    • Scalable Compliance for Growth

  • Ability to segregate documentation by ISO 9001, ISO 13485, and AS9100

  • Foundation in place to support:

    • Aerospace customer audits
    • Defense sector requirements
    • Future regulatory expansion
    Secure Adoption & User Engagement

  • Preventing document downloads ensured:

    • No uncontrolled versions in circulation
    • Stronger system adoption
    • Improved information security
    • Standards & Compliance (Custom Module)

  • The customized Standards & Compliance module enables structured multi-standard management:

    • Centralized tracking of ISO 9001, ISO 13485, and AS9100 requirements
    • Clear visibility of which documents apply to each standard
    • Faster, more structured audit preparation across multiple regulatory frameworks

CEO:

Conclusion

Preventing document downloads ensured:

  • Prepare for AS9100 certification without additional hires
  • Support 30-40% projected aerospace/defence growth over five years
  • Position Quality as a strategic enabler, not an administrative bottleneck

By combining out-of-the-box functionality with deep configurability, Trackmedium eQMS enabled the business to modernize its eQMS while preserving the control and flexibility required in high-assurance industries.

CEO:

Why Trackmedium eQMS was Selected

  • Preventing document downloads ensured:

    • The primary reason Trackmedium eQMS was selected was its clear, intuitive user interface and modular design. The independent module structure allowed information to be naturally compartmentalized, making the system easy to navigate for both quality, non-quality users and cross-functional teams.

  • Flexibility Without Forced Automation

    • Unlike other platforms evaluated, Trackmedium allowed the company to:

    • Retain existing document numbering schemes
    • Choose manual or automated revisions
    • Manage major and minor revisions (e.g. v1.0 vs v1.1 or date-based revisions)

    This flexibility was critical in maintaining continuity with legacy processes while modernizing execution.

    1. Defense-Grade Data Control

      2. Given growing defense-related work, other AI-enabled eQMS platforms that looked attractive on paper raised concerns:

      • Inability to prove data would not be reused for AI training
      • Reliance on third-party AI engines
      • Lack of clear "off" controls

      Trackmedium eQMS' approach allowed the organization to modernize without introducing unnecessary data-security risk.


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