American Sensing Inc.
QMS IMPLEMENTATION FOR MANUFACTURING START UP
Gary Sharogradsky, PresidentThe whole process for developing the system and getting certified was much smoother than I expected.
The Company
American Sensing Inc. is a small start-up sensor manufacturer with strong technical skills and significant investment in infrastructure. The company designs and manufactures sensing technologies for industrial, aerospace, military and other demanding applications.
The Challenge
The owners have extensive experience working in the aerospace industry and recognized they needed to achieve AS9100 certification in order to increase sales in this market. As a start-up, however, they faced a challenge that they had little to no document structure or established processes to build upon.
Our Solution
The owners contacted Insyte Consulting to help them achieve certification in a short time frame with minimal problems by utilizing Insyte’s experienced guidance. The first priority was to develop basic processes and procedures to enable the company to perform the necessary functions without adding restrictions on their limited resources. All procedures were developed and reviewed by the project team. Every effort was made to minimize the length and complexity of the processes.
Due to the short time of the company’s existence, several new methods and metrics needed to be developed. Some of the challenges faced were:
- Developing customer satisfaction measures for customers with little to no history
- Identifying all relevant interested parties
- Collecting sufficient data for measures
- Performing internal audits
These were addressed through ownership experience, customer feedback and Insyte experience. As the implementation progressed the company members took on greater responsibility with the system and ownership of the documents.
The quality system was initiated, and records of the functions were generated. A part-time employee was chosen as the internal auditor. This individual was trained and audits were initiated. A mock audit was performed by Insyte personnel to ensure the system met all requirements of AS 9100D.
The AS9100D audit was subsequently completed, and certification was achieved with zero non-conformances found.
