Our very own president and CEO Richard Powell Has been featured in the August edition of Enterprise Minnesota! In the Article titles "Final Word", Richard discusses how the ISO certification process can help you outpace regulations and win more orders.
Read the short expert below or click here to download the full article.
A Step Ahead, the medical industries ISO certification can help you outpace regulations and win more orders.
By Richard Powell, president and CEO, GMI Inc. (Download Article)
For the past 15 years, our company has provided new and remanufactured medical lab equipment to the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. "Whether a customer buys new or remanufactured products, our focus has always been to deliver a high quality product. As regulations within our customers' industries tighten, we wanted to assure them not only of the quality of our product but also of the quality in our process.
When we went searching for a quality management system, ISO was a natural fit for us because we sell to 40 countries across the globe. ISO is recognized the world over as the "gold standard" when it comes to quality assurance. And though it is not a requirement for doing business, more and more customers in medical-related industries are searching specifically for suppliers that have it.
We jumped into ISO with both feet in the fall of 2009 and involved our entire staff from management to production. In short, ISO requires close examination of each existing process within a company, tweaks to help those processes meet ISO requirements, and written procedures for individual processes as the company sees fit. The written procedures standardize key processes and help customers understand how a company ensures product quality.
Though many other improvement efforts focus exclusively on production, ISO was truly a companywide undertaking, and required analysis and fine-tuning of every process from sales to shipping to human resources. We improved our processes by having various departments audit each other over a period of months, then addressing the bottlenecks they revealed with process revisions: When the end of the 14-month certification process arrived in December 2010, we had doubled productivity and reduced lead-time by 100 percent.
For many companies, GMI included, the appeal of ISO certification is a variety of tangible value-adds. But I believe some of the greatest benefits GMI has seen cannot be measured. Interactions between departments and personnel during our internal audits have proven extremely valuable in helping foster better communication among and a thorough understanding of each department's responsibilities. As a result, there is a greater respect among departments for the role each plays within the larger system. The certification process has also opened employees' minds to look for opportunities to gain even more efficiencies moving forward. In short, our culture has shifted to one of continuous improvement, adding what we feel is tremendous value to the business.
In my mind, the key to maximizing the benefits of ISO at your company is twofold. First, it is essential to take the necessary time to implement it in a customized way, so that ISO is tailored to fit your business. ISO should work for you and not the other way around. Secondly, it is imperative to explain to every employee what ISO certification is and why your company is pursuing it. This will help secure ISO champions in every department, and they will be the driving force necessary to guide and encourage the rest of the company through the process.
You may download the full article here!
