After being ISO 9001 for 13 years, HSI decided to step it up a notch and become AS9100 certified to meet additional aviation, space, and defense requirements. Upon receiving our certification in 2012 we began to focus on areas directly impacting product reliability such as Configuration Management, Design, Purchasing, Product Realization, and Product Monitoring & Measurement. This focus has resulted in greater customer satisfaction through the benefits of operational improvements, cost reductions, improved supplier quality performance, waste reduction, and streamlined documentation.
Involving people at all levels of the organization rather than just the Quality Group encourages employee engagement and allows each employee to take ownership and responsibility for their work. When employees begin to own what they do, they take more pride in their work and often look for ways to increase yields and improve rates. This type of ownership provides a foundation on which HSI can build a culture of continual improvement.
AS9100 causes our organization to be focused on Quality Goals in all departments at a management level. HSI accomplishes this through management review of actual data followed by taking the actions necessary to ensure that goals are met, new goals are set, and continual improvement remains in the forefront of our focus.
AS9100 has made us better in the following areas:
- Customer Focus – We strive to better understand customer requirements in order to truly meet their needs to ensure customer satisfaction.
- Quality Management Principles – HSI now uses a process-type approach to resources and activities, a systems approach to management, a factual approach to decision making, and a mutually beneficial view of supplier relationships.
- Improved Product Performance & Reliability –We take active measures to ensure the consistency of our products.
- Risk Reduction – HSI seeks to minimize the chances of mistakes or failures that could be fatal to business operations.
- Increased Productivity – HSI leadership reviewed and made improvements in how we train and qualify our production workforce. Many improvements have also been made in the documentation and control of our processes, resulting in improved consistency and reductions in scrap and rework.
- Growth –HSI now has access to new Aerospace markets which will lead to increased sales and revenue.
AS9100 guides us down our chosen path of “Say What You Do and Do What You Say.”
