AIC is proud to announce that it has been independently audited and has achieved recertification to the ISO 9001:2008 quality management standard.  AIC was first certified in 2004, and has earned regular recertification since.

 

Advanced Industrial Coatings is one of the few industrial coating applicators on the West Coast that is certified under the ISO 9001 standard, and we have more new clients requiring ISO certification than ever before. Although global manufacturers have long understood the cost benefit associated with hiring ISO-certified suppliers, smaller start-up manufacturers and mid-size companies are getting in on the secret.

 

 

Why it’s challenging to find a coater that’s ISO 9001:2008 certified

Ever looked at the certification requirements?  The amount of documentation and internal auditing required is substantial.  And it’s why some companies will argue that it’s too expensive to put such a quality system in place.  Any coating applications company wanting to achieve certification would either need a rigorous quality system already in place, or they’d probably have to hire a new quality manager to put one in place for them.

 

 

Why having an ISO-certified coating applicator will probably save you on costs

It seems reasonable to think that a heavy quality system would raise the costs associated with running parts through the shop.  But that’s usually not the case!  

• Fewer failures and reworks.  The reasons why ISO-certified shops produce fewer part failures are numerous: personnel are consistently trained and retrained, company management are deeply involved in quality assurance, and the handling of every part is standardized.  These factors combine to produce a lower cost per part due to fewer internal rejects.  And, it’s why hiring a company committed to ISO recertification is an excellent form of cost control: it lowers the risk of having to switch vendors because quality suddenly drops.

• Better issue isolation.  From time to time, quality issues do arise in a coating shop - whether it’s unusual humidity in the air or a change in the substrate from another vendor.  A heavy emphasis on documentation and failure analysis means that in an ISO-certified shop, problems are noticed faster and the causes are easier to isolate  - often saving weeks of costs, experimentation, and production downtime.

 

 

AIC’s ISO:9001:2008 recertification was independently administered by QAS International.  For more information about the quality management systems at AIC, email Ron Cymanski, President, at ron@aic-coatings.com, or submit your question through the form on the AIC website.