What does ISO mean? Why did we feel the need to go after some nebulous certificate with a large cost and thousands of hours of time invested (primarily by our Ops Manager, Jeremy Ruck) to hang on the wall? In our minds it was an exercise in paperwork collection and documentation that wouldn’t necessarily translate into better operations, customer benefits or higher sales. So why did we want to put ourselves through this?
To be honest, our initial push for the certificate was to better satisfy our customers’ supplier verification requirements – a good reason in and of itself. Most GFSI schemes require supplier verification to a certain degree depending on the type of supplier, and by having ISO certification, this made our customers’ lives a little easier in verifying us. As we got into the process, however, we found that ISO requires a very unique approach to the way you structure and manage operations in the company as a whole – all in an effort for continual improvement and customer satisfaction.
ISO is the “International Organization for Standardization” (ISO is not an acronym – it’s actually in reference to the Greek word isos, meaning “equal”). The ISO 9001:2015 standard sets out a “Quality Management System”, with the end goal being ensuring that customers get consistent, good quality products and services. For the past 50+ years, and first embodied by Grandpa Wes, we’ve always strived to provide our customers the highest quality service and products (our “Quality Policy” btw), but now we had a structure and system to ensure, measure and improve this goal.
Jeremy Ruck, Operations Manager at Wesmar, led the charge in our ISO 9001:2015 certification. He literally invested thousands of hours and about 18 months of his life to get us there, and he now has the enormous task of managing the system he helped to create. He saw the tremendous potential of implementing ISO 9001 standards to ensure continue improvement at Wesmar Company. “Your company is either getting better, or it’s getting worse.” Ruck says. “ By implementing ISO 9001 standards across our entire company, we’re able to ensure that we’ll be a company that is always getting better. Whether it’s keeping up with new food safety regulations, increasing production efficiencies, or increasing our customer relations, ISO 9001 standards will be used to guide our way into the future.”
So what does being ISO 9001:2015 certified as of January, 2019 mean for our customers and future customers of Wesmar? Highest Quality Service and Products, easier GFSI Supplier Verification and ultimately, customer satisfaction.
Wesmar’s Mission is to provide Comprehensive Solutions for Food Safety, Cleaning, Sanitation and Water Treatment needs. We help others create safe food products, clean water, and clean, safe environments.
ISO is ensuring we achieve this.
Reach out to us if you’d like to learn more about how we can help do this with you.