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How can companies remain operational even in crisis situations? The QM-Corner demonstrated how business continuity management helps safeguard critical processes and systematically manage risks.
Supply bottlenecks, cyberattacks, natural disasters, or power outages can significantly disrupt business processes and, in the worst-case scenario, bring them to a standstill. For the machinery and plant engineering sector in particular, production outages, disruptions to international supply chains, and IT security incidents can have significant economic consequences. At the same time, customers, business partners, and regulatory authorities are placing increasing demands on companies’ resilience.
As part of ProduktionNRW’s QM Corner on October 28, 2026, participants received an overview of how companies can identify their critical processes, assess risks, and ensure their ability to act in the event of a crisis. In particular, the close connection between quality management and business continuity management (BCM) became clear: While quality management supports robust and controlled processes, BCM focuses on ensuring that these processes continue as reliably as possible even under exceptional conditions.
Identifying Risks and Securing Critical Processes
Dr. Frank Bünting, Deputy Managing Director of VDMA Business Advisory, began by presenting the fundamentals of BCM. The goal is to systematically prepare companies for events that could significantly disrupt key business processes. Key guidelines include ISO 22301 and the BSI Standard 200-4. A central tool is the business impact analysis. It reveals interdependencies between processes, systems, resources, and business units; assesses the impact of potential failures; and helps determine necessary recovery times.
The data presented on the current risk landscape also underscored the growing importance of this issue. For the mechanical engineering sector, the focus is particularly on cyber risks and digital outages, economic uncertainties, geopolitical developments, supply chains, and the failure of critical infrastructure. For companies, this means not viewing risk management in isolation, but rather integrating quality management, IT, procurement, production, and service more closely with one another.
Implementing Business Continuity Management Pragmatically
Dr. Eggert de Weldige, Managing Director of Maschinenfabrik Köppern GmbH & Co. KG, then demonstrated what such safeguards might look like in a medium-sized company. His practical example made it clear that business continuity management does not necessarily have to be established as an additional management system. At Maschinenfabrik Köppern, the topic is instead integrated into the existing ISO 9001 quality management system and its assessment of opportunities and risks. The measures are tracked, among other things, through internal audits.
Using concrete examples, Dr. de Weldige demonstrated how preventive measures can vary depending on the risk. The scenarios considered include, among others, flooding, fire, cyberattacks, and power outages. The measures range from regular building monitoring and structural flood prevention to technical fire safety measures, the implementation of IT security measures, and the creation of emergency plans. It is crucial to understand the processes and risks that are critical to one’s own company and to integrate appropriate measures into existing workflows.
Resilience as a Shared Management Responsibility
The QM-Corner demonstrated that BCM goes far beyond traditional emergency planning. It is crucial to identify dependencies early on, clarify responsibilities, and regularly review preventive measures. Integrating BCM with existing management systems offers small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular, the opportunity to pragmatically embed this topic and avoid creating additional parallel structures.
The concluding exchange of experiences gave participants the opportunity to discuss their own challenges and solutions drawn from real-world business practice.
Organizer
The event was organized by ProduktionNRW in cooperation with VDMA Software and Digitalization. ProduktionNRW is the cluster for mechanical engineering and production technology in North Rhine-Westphalia and is operated by VDMA NRW. ProduktionNRW serves as a platform to connect, inform, and promote companies, institutions, and networks with one another and along the value chain. Significant portions of the services provided by ProduktionNRW are funded by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Protection, and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.