Published - 14th Jul 2015
In common with many engineering organisations, Haworth Castings currently holds ISO 9001:2008 accreditation, which is one of the world’s most recognised quality management standards.
The ISO 9001 accreditation, which is used by more than one million businesses worldwide, is based on a number of quality management principles that cover areas such as process approach, management responsibility, customer focus and continual improvement.
Organisations are audited and assessed in these areas by independent auditors from the British Standards Institution.
If successful, they receive the relevant ISO 9001 accreditation.
At Haworth Castings, ISO 9001 accreditation provides external verification to our customers that we are meeting the very highest standards in how we run our business and implement quality controls. It is not a mandatory requirement for foundries to achieve ISO 9001 accreditation – but it does show that we are operating as a best practice supplier.
As part of the certification process, external accreditors visit the foundry twice each year to carry out detailed audits. They look closely at how we carry out specific procedures, such as equipment calibration or quality control, to ensure that this is carried out in line with documented policies and in a consistent way across the foundry.
The auditors have full access to our records and policy documents, and they are able to choose which areas to audit on each occasion. We work closely with our external auditors to ensure that any non-conformities or issues are resolved quickly and effectively.
Auditors are especially looking for evidence that we are delivering continual improvements in the way we run our business, helping to increase efficiency, quality and customer satisfaction.
Our in-house team runs regular internal audit checks across the business and we work closely with the external auditors to ensure continued compliance with the ISO 9001 accreditation.
In addition to ISO audits, customers may also carry out separate third-party quality checks, depending on their individual company auditing requirements or policies.
The ISO certification standard is constantly evolving to meet new business practices and approaches. We are now looking forward to the forthcoming publication of ISO 9001:2015, which is due to be introduced later in the year. This will bring new requirements on us as a business and preparations are already underway to meet these challenges.
For further details about quality management at the foundry, please email sales@haworthcastings.co.uk or visit www.haworthcastings.co.uk/quality
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