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ISO
9001 at Cole Hersee
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a consortium of
representatives from almost 100 countries. Its purpose is to promote the development of
standardization across the world, a move that is necessary to improve world trade.
The ISO9001 is an earned standard, indicating to the world that a company has a
well-documented quality standard and procedures, along with records of compliance to those
quality standards. At Cole Hersee we've proudly maintained our ISO9001 status since 1993.
View our ISO Certificate
Moving towards QS-9000:
an even higher level of quality.
Worldwide quality
In today's fast-paced marketplace, the key to success is quality. All over the world
leading-edge companies continuously work to improve the quality of their products and
services, while at the same time reducing costs. Most of these companies have embraced
quality management systems such as ISO 9000, which make quality concepts and principles an
integral part of daily life. Cole Hersee Company has achieved and maintained ISO 9001
certification over a period of six years. But there is a new highly specialized standard
for automotive suppliers. It's called QS-9000, and you'll be hearing more and more about
it.
Where QS2000 came from
The Big Three (Chrysler Corporation, Ford Motor Company, and General Motors Corporation)
saw a need for a neutral forum where supplier and manufacturer concerns could be
discussed. They formed a joint Supplier Quality Requirements Task Force with the job of
looking at the mountains of paperwork, and the convoluted procedures that had grown up
over the years between suppliers and manufacturers. They perceived that there was an
overpowering need for standardization and better regulation of procedures. Better
understanding and improved control would point out where errors were being made, and thus
save time and money for those who were selling a product and those who were buying it. The
task force began to create standards with an alphabet-soup of names.
The new QS-9000 is the common supplier quality standard for the Big Three, which was based
upon the 1994 revision of ISO 9001, the standard that Cole Hersee is certified to.
However, over 100 additional requirements were added on top of ISO 9001 to make it more
specific to our industry. These extra requirements are all auditable, which means that
they must be continuously monitored and subject to checking by a third-party authority.
Before QS-9000 was released for the automotive industry, the heavy truck industry had been
proceeding along parallel lines, and in 1994 the member companies of the Truck Advisory
Group Quality Committee of the AIAG also agreed to adopt the QS-9000. This brought the
heavy-hitters of the trucking industry (Freightliner, Mack Truck, Navistar, PACCAR, and
Volvo GM Heavy Truck) into agreement on standards.
QS-9000 is the quality standard for suppliers to the major truck and car manufacturers.
It is based upon and includes ISO 9001, but with the addition of many extra auditable
requirements.
It is therefore a higher level standard that is specific to our industry. We at Cole
Hersee are always looking to improve, and we wholeheartedly embrace this more stringent
set of requirements. We are well on our way to achieving this higher level standard.
ISO: International Organization for Standardization www.iso.ch
Search for ISO and QS-registered companies www.globusregistry.com
TUV: ISO registrar for Cole Hersee and other companies www.tuvps.com
Grant Thornton, Management Consultants to Cole Hersee and other companies: www.grantthornton.com
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