Quality, EH&S and ISO certificates
To meet and exceed our customers’ quality expectations, we maintain Quality Management Systems (QMS) based on our business and customer needs. These systems are reviewed regularly to look for opportunities for improvement. We make sure we adapt our practices to our customer and industry expectations on quality as these evolve in the markets we serve.
To drive quality improvements more effectively throughout our organization, we established a Quality Management System Center of Excellence. This group of employees is the stewards for quality. They make sure that our Quality Management Systems provide global consistency and local flexibility around quality. They also make sure these systems meet the requirements of international standards such as ISO 9001, which our customers expect.
ISO 9001 CERTIFICATION (QUALITY)
VDA and IATF AUTOMOTIVE COMPLIANCE
We are compliant with the IATF Industry requirements as a sub-supplier to the automotive industry. Currently, we do not have plans to have our plants certified to the Automotive Standard but all our plants are prepared to successfully be audited to the standard. All our Quality Managers have been trained to lead an IATF audit at our manufacturing plants. We have had many of our customers successfully audit our plants to VDA or IATF requirements.
The requirement has been interpreted for certification requirements: It is mandatory for Tier 1 (Direct) Suppliers to OEM to be IATF 16949 certified. IATF certification for Tier 2 or 3 or in automotive supply chain suppliers is not mandatory.
We ensure all our plants are compliant (understand the standard requirements, can be audited to and receive passing satisfactory scores to the end customer with no majors) but currently are not pursuing direct Certification. When preparing for a customer audit, our plant will work with the end customer to understand if they are following IATF or VDA. In general, IATF is more widely accepted globally. European companies tend to use VDA. The U.S. and Asia tend to follow IATF.
ISO CERTIFICATIONS