ETQ headquartered in Burlington offers the ETQ Reliance Platform, a quality management solution designed to meet a business' unique quality needs and risks with an automated best practice-driven software solution.
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MasterControl Quality Excellence
Score 8.5 out of 10
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MasterControl Quality Excellence is a Quality Management System (QMS) for the life sciences. It enables life-sciences companies to enable flexible quality event management, simplified document management, and automated training management that work together to close the loop on quality.
We did on-site day plus demos of three products. Having a specific criteria to evaluate the products against in a decision matrix format made the actual selection more objective. There are many products out there that do similar things to what Reliance does, so educate yourself …
MasterControl Quakity Excellence was selected due to the need for a new medical device application and was best suited to meet the needs of the rest of the business that focuses on food and beverage. It was the Manufacturing Excellence module that set it apart and was a key …
ETQ Reliance is great for quality systems in which different levels of personnel are accessing common documents. The user interface and basic functionality is very intuitive, and thus easy to navigate for both novice and experienced technical users. It is also great at organizing tasks and maintaining document attributes. Overall, great for the purposes of an audit. For more advanced users, it may be limited in functionality. Data analytics and related visualization is more easily done after exporting data and manipulating in third-party software programs.
The MasterControl Quality Excellence suite is well suited for the life sciences and biotechnology as well as manufacturing companies that could benefit from the regulatory compliance that this suite of products offer. This product is highly recommended for industries that want to reduce paper overhead and digitally transform their QMS into a singular location
License model can become very expensive for small startup businesses.
More development with validation and more transparent information on how the improvements and or fixes may impact the current configuration. Currently, everything is listed, but it is not tailored to my system.
More information regarding the transition of previous processes to new processes. i.e., FBS to AQEM. I am currently working on the ADV/FBS forms and will eventually transition to AQEM/ADAPT. Still, I would like more information regarding the transition to inform current stakeholders about the improvements on the horizon.
would rate MasterControl Quality Excellence a 7 out of 10 because, while it offers strong compliance tools, centralized document control, and effective audit readiness features, there are still areas that could be improved to enhance the overall user experience. The platform can sometimes feel complex and unintuitive, especially for new users, and customizing workflows to fit specific organizational needs can be challenging. Additionally, integration with other enterprise systems isn't always seamless, which can slow down processes. Despite these drawbacks, the system remains a reliable and valuable tool for maintaining quality and regulatory compliance.
Some tasks require the users and SysAdmin to access multiple modules at a time. For example: to create a training course and an exam for a document in the system, the user needs to finish creating the document in the doc module, then go to the training module to create a course and an exam separately. Ideally, from the document page we should be able to access the training course, which could have some fields auto-populated. And from there, also create and link an exam, all without leaving the document page.
At the basic support level, you get adequate support, but you are likely to be passed around from one tech support rep to another even on the same problem. Some of the support staff are both technically strong and have good interpersonal communication skills, others less so for the latter. Recently it seems that ETQ wants to monetize more of their support services both in multi-level support as well as in seeming to move some services from included in annual support to a fee basis (for on-premise deployment).
The Technical Support team has grown exponentially over the last couple years. Some front line support staff are new to the system and so know less than the clients do. Back line staff are more seasoned and provide immediate assistance to the front line staff. They have an extensive knowledge bank to assist them as well as client access to most KB articles. Annual user group conference gives us chance to meet the support staff an also to resolve any outstanding issues. Any critical vendor notices are emailed immediately when found and a patch offered at the same time. These are rare, but quickly resolved.
I rated the MasterControl in-person training a 10 because it was clear, practical, and well-paced. The trainer explained concepts thoroughly and answered questions effectively. I appreciated the hands-on walkthroughs, which made it easier to understand how to apply the system in real scenarios. Overall, it was a valuable learning experience that boosted my confidence in using MasterControl.
transparent and immediate when the documents are updated. Easy to check on training and customizable to the company's expectations. Allows easy exam creation with GXP assist and the correlation between job codes and courses has proven reliable. What i would advocate is that you see who has trained on the course in the Course Infocard, to the document infocard
The implementation of MasterControl Quality Excellence was largely successful, earning an 8 out of 10. The project was well-structured, and the implementation team provided solid guidance throughout the process. Key milestones were met on time, and the system was configured to meet most of our core requirements. One of the most valuable aspects was the hands-on training and support during go-live, which helped ensure user adoption. However, there were some challenges around data migration and aligning the system’s capabilities with our existing workflows, which required more time and effort than anticipated. Overall, the experience was positive, and the lessons learned have positioned us well for future system enhancements.
Prior to ETQ we were using spreadsheets and shared drives and the ability to pull information was challenging. It was a very manual process done by many people. Now, it is somewhat manually input by one or two people and the retrieval of information can be done by anyone anywhere with ease.
The products we evaluated were considered as potential replacements for MasterControl Quality Excellence. At this time, we continue using MasterControl Quality Excellence primarily due to the significant volume of data in our system and the operational impact of a platform transition. Intellect QMS emerged as a strong alternative, offering extensive, intuitive business process development tools and a wide range of built-in QMS processes out of the box. MasterControl Quality Excellence currently maintains the advantage solely because of the logistical and business burden associated with migrating to a new system.
Has saved a lot of time in preparing for audits. In an organization with multiple franchises, the cost savings from reduced man-hours is well in the $500K+ per year range.
Cloud capability has saved on document storage and hardware costs. The cost of storing online is low and has saved up to $100K per year in hardware and data maintenance costs.
Reduced need for third-party document control applications. ETQ Reliance has eliminated the need for other software applications to support quality document maintenance.
