First ISO 9001:2015 Machine Tool Builder

For the past six months I’ve led an internal team here at Okuma through the process of becoming ISO 9001:2015 certified. Today I’m pleased to report that we’ve obtained that certification, and in fact we’re the first machine tool builder to achieve this. This standard is based on a number of quality management principles including a strong customer focus, the motivation and implication of top management, the process approach and continual improvement. Using ISO 9001:2015 helps ensure that customers get consistent, good quality products and services, which in turn brings many business benefits.

Our Process

We know many Okuma users maintain ISO certifications in their shops. To use machine tools from a builder certified in the latest standard provides advantages you understand well. Some may wonder, what did you do to get there? What steps did you have to take? Here’s the process we used to obtain our ISO 9001:2015 certification.

1. Training - The first thing we did was get trained on the new standards. During this phase we also set up our transition team and internal auditors, and made sure everyone was up to speed.
2. Gap Analysis – This is where we identified our beginning status compared to where we needed to be to obtain the new certification. We identified things that needed to be added or updated and took steps to fill these gaps.
3. Update Documentation – Once changes were made to address the gaps, we updated our documentation accordingly.
4. Internal Audits – We sent our internal auditors to check and confirm that we’re following all of our procedures correctly.
5. External Audits – The last step involved having the external auditor committee visit our facilities and determine our certification status.

Up to the Latest Standard

This was a lot of work for our team, but we moved along at a pretty good clip. Now our customers can feel secure in knowing that we’re ISO certified up to the latest standard. You can be assured that we have the most current processes in place for things like tracking information and customer communications. Manufacturers who are ISO certified themselves will appreciate that we have similar business processes to theirs. With ISO standards in common, we’re partners in quality.

Michael Lail is QA Compliance Manager, Okuma America Corporation.