This past December, the quality management system of II-VI’s Wide Bandgap Materials Group (WBG) operation in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, was certified to the ISO 9001:2000 standard. With the WBG location in New Jersey having received its certification in 2003, this entire business unit of II-VI Incorporated is now certified.

ISO is the designation for the International Organization for Standardization, derived from the Greek word for equal (isos). It is composed of one representative from each of the 146 member countries, with an individual based in Switzerland responsible for coordinating the efforts of the organization. It is not a governmental body but rather bridges the public and private sector in an effort to provide globally accepted and enforced standards.

According to the ISO, “ISO 9000 has become an international reference for quality management requirements in business-to-business dealings.” It guides quality management and involves quality requirements of the customer, applicable regulatory requirements, customer satisfaction enhancement, and continual improvement to fulfill these goals.

“The procedures we developed to ensure satisfaction mean not only that the product meets a customer’s specified requirements, but it goes beyond that to meet the unspecified requirements,” according to Dr. Andy Souzis, Manager of Technology and Programs for WBG. “We try to determine what the customer really needs, and not just what they are requesting.”

The standard also requires a means to track the performance of processes as well as outlining corrective actions should a problem be discovered. When this occurs, the situation is investigated, a root cause determined, and a decision made on whether or not the existing procedure needs to be modified to ensure that the problem does not occur again.

Certification is maintained through periodic audits, during which investigators visit the company to examine records and documentation and interview employees. If any nonconformances are found to exist, a formal notification is issued and the organization undertakes corrective action. In extreme cases, certification can be revoked.

“The process of planning for certification forced WBG management to take a close look at the status of the business, and who we were as a team. These sessions clarified our overall vision of what we were trying to build and allowed us to articulate medium- and long-term goals and strategies for the group. These strategies were then adopted as our quality policy, the central document of the quality management system,” said Mike Nolan, Quality Manager for WBG.

“Bringing these elements into the culture and integrating the principles into daily work life helps you become a better company and a better supplier and partner with your customers,” Dr. Souzis explained. “In fact, we have some customers who require that their key suppliers be certified.”

“Certification was important to us internally,” he added, “because it gives us a discipline to follow to ensure that we continually improve both our process technology and our product quality. Externally, it gives our customers an independent assurance that the system we have in place for maintaining the quality of the product is a good one.”