Improving Delivery Performance

ISO 9001:2000 and King Machine
A President’s Perspective
 

by Mike Wells, President King Machine & Bill Houser

In mid-2001, we at King Machine began the development of our ISO 9001:2000 Quality Management System. We didn’t start the process because of customer pressure, but rather because we believed it would be good for our business.
 

As background, King Machine manufactures and repairs tire molds for tire manufacturing companies. In 2001 we had three plants in North Carolina and one in Akron, Ohio that were manufacturing and repairing tire molds.
 

It was not the best of times for those in the tire mold business. Business was slow. Tire companies were not developing as many new tires as in previous years. Customers were in a position to demand more and pay less. Many of our competitors had gone or were going out of business, and the competition for the business that was being left was fierce.
 

Fortunately, King Machine had a reputation for quality that was second to none. Therefore, with all other factors being equal, King Machine was often the supplier of choice. Unfortunately for King Machine, the way we achieved our high outgoing quality was both expensive and time consuming. Consequently, we often found ourselves at a competitive disadvantage. 
 

As we studied our situation we recognized that to achieve the level of quality that made us the envy of the mold industry, we were spending too much time redoing and reworking. In other words, we always took the time to get the job done right—but not the first time. The end product was good, but because of the repairing, reworking and redoing the overall processes were too time consuming and expensive.
 

As we studied further I concluded that we had the right tools and people, what we lacked were the manufacturing and management systems and processes to employ these tools and people in efficiently producing our products. We needed to improve our systems if we were to survive in the long run. Enter ISO 9001:2000.
 

ISO 9001:2000 had recently been published, and, after reviewing it, we concluded it provided the model to be followed to achieve the much needed process improvements. At that point in time, we were more interested in following the ISO requirements to better our business than certification. In fact, throughout the implementation, certification was viewed as a by-product of implementation rather than the objective—our objective as we met each requirement was always to improve our business. 
 

Because we were using current employees without extensive ISO experience and because we are a rather inbred group (many of the King employees having spent their entire career with us), we concluded we should have outside professional help in developing and implementing our ISO 9001:2000 system. Our search took us to Bill Houser.  We believed it was absolutely critical that we receive the most benefit from the ISO 9001:2000 installation, and Bill’s philosophies and methods met our views and needs of an implementation aimed at improving the business.
We began the ISO 9001:2000 development in June of 2001 with the PUSH-PULL. The PUSH-PULL starts with a recognition that it takes a great deal of effort to develop a Quality Management System that is compliant with ISO 9001:2000. This effort can come from two sources: Forces that are pushing—usually negative forces; and Forces that are pulling—positive forces. The combination of these must be enough to provide support and sustain motivation. 
 

As each plant began their ISO 9001:2000 development the management team went through the PUSH-PULL process. As each management team developed their PUSH-PULL, they listed both the forces pushing and those pulling the organization toward ISO 9000. NOTE: I think my name appeared on all the PUSH-PULLs in the PUSH column!
 

While pressures pushing an organization like ours may force development of a system, they will not force development beyond a “minimum system”. Pull forces, on the other hand, provide insight into how the system should be designed, and they provide the organizational and individual incentives to develop and implement a system providing the kind of improvement we needed.
 

We kept the original PUSH-PULL as a reference against our progress. It has been laminated, and if you visit our conference room in Charlotte today, you will find the original PUSH-PULL framed and signed.
 

As the development proceeded we constantly reminded ourselves that improvement was the overriding objective. As we dealt with each requirement in the standard, we didn’t ask, “What is necessary to meet the standard?” Rather, we asked two questions:

1. “Is this requirement reasonable?” The answer was always “Yes!” aside from those areas we were excluding.

2. “What is the best way for King Machine to meet the requirement?” The recognition being that we wanted a system that met our needs first and secondly met the standard.

It is interesting to note that every time we went through the soul searching, fussing and feuding necessary to find the best processes to meet our needs, those processes met the ISO requirements as well.
 

As development of the ISO 9001:2000 management system progressed we selected Smithers Quality Assessments as our registrar. The certification audit for the first two plants was in the latter part of 2002, and all went well. The auditors were very complimentary and very thorough. The second two plants followed in 2003 with the same results.
 

But that is only the beginning of the story. The ISO 9001:2000 Quality Management System is alive, well, and still growing. Our objective is to be recognized as the company that produced the highest quality tire molds, delivered more quickly, and at competitive prices. As stated earlier, our outgoing quality has always been very high, but we achieved that through excessive redoing and reworking that played havoc with quick delivery and costs.
 

We recognized that for tire manufacturers the timeline from design to tires in the marketplace has never been shorter. To support our customers we need to continuously implement ways to reduce mold lead-time from drawings to mold delivery. The advantage of shortened lead times is both tires in the market place sooner and the tire manufacturers can spend more time designing, testing, perfecting and making marketing decisions before committing to mold purchase. Therefore, shortening our delivery cycle became a strategic objective to support our customers and gain business for King Machine.
 

Many things have been done to shorten our delivery cycle time. For example, we started measuring our Cost of Non-Conformance. These are the costs generated by problems that are slowing down, stopping, and backing up tire molds as they progress through the system.  Having identified these cost they needed to be eliminated. Our CAPAR (Corrective And Preventive Action Request) system is used to solve the problems exposed by the Cost of Non-Conformance. I am relentless in this pursuit of both discovery of problems and resolution because we can improve both costs and delivery if we eliminate the problems that contribute to the Cost of Non-Conformance.
 

I personally review all CAPARS. We don’t like ongoing problems, and the only way to root them out is to: first, recognize they exist and then to, second: find ways to prevent their recurrence. Our CAPAR system does that, and while some might get concerned when they see a problem, I get concerned when we stop seeing problems. For example, about a year ago I noticed that the number of CAPARs being generated was falling off. This meant to me that the CAPAR related improvements would be slowing down. This was discussed in a Management Review and it was decided that the senior management of each plant must generate at least one “management CAPAR” per month—a current problem, potential problem, or continual improvement that must be recognized so it can be resolved. I police this requirement carefully, and it has been very successful. We have had a number of very good improvements from the management CAPARs.
 

The management CAPARs have been so successful that we are currently implementing the same requirement for various plant departments. We are generating more CAPARs than ever—Hooray!! Since these CAPARs are being resolved our improvement is continuing!!
 

I attend all Management Reviews, and they have proven to be critically important to us. Our Management Reviews take all day, they are working sessions, we make significant decisions, they are both exhausting and exhilarating. Significant changes in direction and some of our best continual improvement projects have come from these Management Reviews.
 

Implementing the Quality Management System is not the only thing we’ve been doing to better serve our customers. Some new equipment has been purchased. We became more vertically integrated by adding a foundry (currently implementing an ISO 9001:2000 system).
 

The results of implementing the Quality Management System and our other initiatives are that our customer base has expanded. We have moved from a second tier to top tier supplier with one of our customers. We continually get high marks from our customers for our Quality Management System (Incidentally, certification to ISO 9001:2000 is now becoming a requirement for tire model producers).  Our volumes, market share and efficiency are all up, and our mold lead times are dropping dramatically.   Last year we consolidated two of our North Carolina plants into much larger and better laid out facilities to better service our customers. The ISO system helped the move go flawlessly—we didn’t miss a shipment.
 

The ISO 9001:2000 system and other changes have benefited our customers in the speed with which expedited/quick response molds are produced by the King companies on a regular and consistent basis. Lead-times for expedited molds have been reduced more than 40% over the past years. Each and every year we have reduced the lead-time needed from drawings to finished product—13% reduction for both expedited and standard molds last year. This has given our customers a competitive advantage in being first to market with their tires.   
 

Memory being what it is, I’ve commented on a number of occasions, “I wonder how we ever made a mold before ISO 9001:2000.”