| Pierce Manufacturing has passed its ISO 9001:2008 Surveillance Audit |
Two types of auditing are required to become registered to the ISO standard: auditing by an external certification body, such as ABS QE, and audits by internal staff trained for this process.
Pierce Manufacturing, an Oshkosh Corporation company announced that it has successfully completed its ISO (International Organization for Standardization) 9001:2008 Surveillance Audit by ABS Quality Evaluations (ABS QE), an independent third-party organization. ISO 9001:2008 is an internationally recognized standard that sets forth a set of requirements aimed at achieving customer satisfaction. Pierce completed its surveillance audit and there were no major or minor findings.
The company was first certified to ISO 9001 standards in 1998. "The ISO 9001:2008 standard, which is recognized around the world, is extremely comprehensive. This reassures our customers that Pierce Manufacturing maintains consistency in all phases of our operations," said Jim Johnson, Oshkosh Corporation executive vice president and president, Fire & Emergency. "We're extremely pleased to have gone through the surveillance without a single major or minor finding. It speaks volumes about the people and the processes we have in place to build quality vehicles that will perform for firefighters and the communities they serve."
Two types of auditing are required to become registered to the standard: auditing by an external certification body, such as ABS QE, and audits by internal staff trained for this process. The aim of the audit is a continual process of review and assessment, to verify that the system is working as intended. The audit also finds out how the system can improve and to correct or prevent problems identified. The ISO standards require that all employees in the company, especially upper management, embrace quality control in their day-to-day activities.
"We have more than 25 internal auditors, throughout the company, who are organized into cross functional teams," said Chris Bronikowski, Pierce Manufacturing director of quality and continuous improvement. "These are all employee volunteers, who gladly take on this extra responsibility to ensure that we are following procedures and are compliant with ISO 9001:2008 standard."