By: Jeff White, Induron Executive Vice President and General Manager
As of January 23, 2023, Induron is an ISO 9001: 2015 registered company. This registration acknowledges Induron’s Quality Program meets the ISO Standard and has been independently audited by a third party and APPROVED! Our Scope of Registration includes design, manufacturing, and shipping of industrial coatings for the ductile iron pipe, water and wastewater, and power transmission markets. Our Certificate No. 6701 was provided by Eagle Registrations, Inc.
So, what does ISO 9001 certified mean?
ISO 9001 is the international standard that specifies requirements for a quality management system. Our quality management systems consist of three sections:
- Quality Management System (QMS): A QMS examines risks, opportunities, structure, and commitment to quality.
- Standard Operating Procedures (SOP): A SOP details each process and procedure that we do–from research and development to manufacturing to shipping, and even how we handle customer complaints.
- Forms: All forms are standardized and cataloged with an Induron form number.Our intent is to make sure we do everything with quality and the customer in mind.
What is the ISO certification process?
While we have executed an excellent internal quality program at Induron for two decades, which makes our process more consistent, taking the next step to get ISO certified was still a monumental undertaking! The entire process took about 18 months and hundreds of man hours of work with everyone on our operations team contributing. If you’re not careful throughout the entire process, the ISO 9001 Certification process can become an exercise in paperwork.
The SOPs were written to document the knowledge of our experienced workforce and excellent leadership team. Going forward, the most value from our certification will be the documentation of our “tribal knowledge” and providing guidance in our day-to-day operations to carry us into the future as we move into the next generation.
Why are these SOPs so valuable?
Each department collaborated to write their own procedures to ensure that we say what we do, do what we say, and make sure we are doing it in the most effective way from both a quality and efficient standpoint.
Ultimately, by going through (and continuing to go through) these certification audits and working to continually improve our QMS will help us live up to our Induron mission statement “Reliable Protection through Innovative Coatings” while maintaining our core values of Respect, Integrity, Reliability, and Innovation.