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German Technical Inspection Authority (TÜV) praises Hansa’s excellent quality management.
Hansa Metallwerke AG has had its Stuttgart, Burglengenfeld (Germmany) and Královice (Czech Republic) sites successfully certified according to the international quality management standard ISO 9001 for the fifth time. The Stuttgart-based fittings manufacturer has checked and optimised its corporate processes continuously for over 16 years, participates in repeat audits for quality management every three years and has its high standards certified by independent experts on a regular basis.
“It goes without saying that participation in the certification process is an essential part of our claim to lead the industry in terms of quality”, comments Hansa CEO Christopher Marshall. “A management system geared to continual performance enhancement is indispensable to a modern, internationally active company like Hansa.”
Since its initial certification in 1994, the long-established company has implemented a host of measures designed to increase customer orientation levels and guarantee consistently high quality in all work sequences, from raw materials purchasing, production and logistics to customer service. Hansa uses various state-of-the-art quality management tools to achieve this, including FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis), which enables errors to be recognised and countered in good time. A special software is used to systematically analyse potential errors during construction, by localising the failure site, determining the error type and, finally, establishing its cause. A further tool used in industrial quality management is flow stimulation via the Moldflow software, which also highlights constructional weaknesses in advance. The advantage of these “preventive” quality management strategies lies not only in an increase in precision, but also in reduced costs, as errors are recognised before they are made.
What is a quality management system? What is ISO 9001?
If correctly established and applied, a quality management system is an effective management tool which can be used to make important improvements to a company or organisation. The idea behind it: well-organised work sequences guarantee good qualitative results. Among other things, quality management includes:
• controlling recurrent work sequences,
• determining responsibilities,
• organising information flow to internal and external interfaces,
• carrying out checks to maintain the quality of procedural steps.
Quality management standards such as ISO 9001 stipulate the requirements which must be fulfilled by a company’s management in order to comply with a specific level of quality management. The quality itself is not “standardised” – but the way to achieve it is. It follows that the term “quality management” could be replaced by the designation “process management”. The ISO 9001 standard merely specifies a framework which a company occupies according to its individual requirements.
“ISO” stands for the International Organisation for Standardisation. It draws up international standards in its capacity as an international standard-setting body.
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