The Zettl Group unites the automotive, interior, Meditec, and IT systems sectors under one roof. For over 30 years, global players in the automotive industry have relied on the expertise of this Bavarian company — from development through to quality management.
The Zettl Group operates in diverse sectors — from mask production to technical services in the automotive industry. As a result, the company has various, mutually independent (parallel) core processes. These are enabled and governed by shared support and management processes.
Additionally, we are required to meet a wide range of regulatory standards, particularly in the area of highly regulated medical devices. For example, we are currently working towards certification according to ISO 9001. Our goal was to integrate all departments into one unified, entrepreneurial management system.
Under the previous system, we used eight different document types. This led to complex document control and maintenance, which in turn resulted in outdated documentation in many areas — offering limited operational value to both the company and our employees.
Our new management system needed to meet ambitious requirements:
Q.wiki impressed us with several key strengths:
Additionally, Q.wiki won us over with its Generator add-on module, which enabled us to independently digitize some of our previously paper-based processes.
Just 11 months after go-live, we are taking stock — and are impressed by how well Q.wiki has already become established in our organization and the tangible value it has brought in under a year.
Our biggest challenge — representing four diverse business units in one system — was solved remarkably well with Q.wiki. Thanks to customizable metadata and robust filter and search functions, we can now quickly retrieve relevant process knowledge.
One of the keys to developing process knowledge was the decentralized structure of the system. We’ve seen that this works exceptionally well: even during the initial implementation phase, more than half of the contributions came from employees outside the core project team.
This is a significant step forward — it shows we’re successfully moving away from outdated structures and toward a culture of comprehensive, process-oriented thinking. And this high level of engagement supports the strong acceptance of our management system through genuine participation.
Our launch with Q.wiki was a resounding success, thanks in part to the clear project recommendations provided by Modell Aachen. During the introductory phase leading up to the go-live, we were able to follow a well-structured project plan and collect content in a decentralized way. As a result, we had already created over 60% of the pages in Q.wiki before the official go-live. After a collaborative review phase, the system went live company-wide — significantly shortening the implementation phase and doubling the number of work instructions from 95 to nearly 200 within just three months.
Thanks to the rapid implementation, we were able to reduce the number of approval workflows from 110 to just 35 per week shortly after going live. Additionally, the focus of user activity shifted: while 85% of access was initially to the process area, module usage quickly grew to account for 40% of all system activity.
To us, these developments clearly demonstrate that the system has been well received by our employees and has now become a reliable and effective tool in everyday operations.
Additional data supports the success of our management system:
Mapping all four of our business units within one system has made it much easier to handle certifications. Because all data is continuously updated, there’s no last-minute rush before audits, and the automatic assignment of standards simplifies audit preparation. The result: significantly less effort required for certifications.
Not only do we now have all required documentation for successful audits, but we’ve also gathered all process-relevant information from across the company into one system. The process-oriented structure further facilitates cross-team collaboration, which is of immense value to both our company and our employees.
Q.wiki also meets all our requirements for a modern management system through its wide range of modules. Thanks to no-code digitization, we were able to digitize various use cases quickly and with ease.
We now use Q.wiki modules for:
“Q.wiki was the ideal introduction to knowledge and process management on a broad basis for us.”
“It is not certificates that carry out the processes successfully — it is the employees. And 86% of the workforce is in our management system every month.”
“In the past, regulatory processes and the like were a necessary evil. Now there is real added value for the workforce.”
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