A company Wiki is an efficient tool to centralize all of a company’s know-how. It is a shared platform that facilitates team collaboration and is always up-to-date. Like an intranet, but better. Use a Wiki for a.o.:
- Communicate the Mission and Vision of the company
- Publish the Employee Handbook
- Share quarterly results and updates
- Collaborate on the marketing plan
- Store work instructions
- Record shared meeting notes
- Training materials
A wiki makes documenting information straightforward and with a Google-like search function it is easy and fast for employees to find the information they need. A wiki is very accessible and as a result, employees use it every day.
For start-ups it is easier to implement a Wiki, since they don’t yet have that much documentation. The sooner you start centralizing your know-how in a Wiki, the easier it is!
So start-ups really have the advantage here; a wiki will make them more efficient, also in the long run
Because of it’s accessibility and in essence a wiki is like a Document Management system, take the advantage to document your Quality Management System (QMS) in there; after all a QMS is the documentation of your company’s processes. This way you avoid the introduction of yet another system and quality management will become embedded in everything you and your team does, without being seen as administrative overhead. Auditors will appreciate the accessibility of your QMS for the entire team and you will have no issues in providing records (documented proof of a working QMS).
Out-the-box Wiki’s satisfy the requirements for document control in ISO 13485, so you have no worries there. As part of your company’s knowledge base, you will have all your instructions (Tier 3) documents in your Wiki, so all you need is to document your Quality Manual, Policy and Objectives (Tier 1), your procedures (Tier 2) and create some convenient templates for your records (Tier 4).
For your Wiki I can highly recommend Confluence (which is even free up to 10 users!). I have helped several companies implement their QMS in Confluence that are now ISO 13485 certified.
Curious to learn how a Wiki can help your Quality Management?