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Quality Makes Us Global

The Quality Commitment at Global Forming

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While many companies claim to be committed to quality, far fewer have gone through the rigorous evaluation and verification processes needed to achieve quality management system certifications. At Global Forming, we walk the talk of quality throughout our operations. Our efforts have earned two important quality certifications that we maintain with frequent monitoring and auditing by third-party certification bodies:
Global Forming’s latest IATF 16949 Certificate

Consistency in Quality Across Client Customer Projects

Adhering to the rigorous global industrial standards of ISO 9001 and IATF 16949 is no small task. Implementing the quality management systems that ensure successful customer client outcomes on every project requires hard work and attention to detail. But it’s also not a one-and-done scenario. Maintaining those quality management systems over time entails constant vigilance along with a commitment to continuous improvement. We never rest on our laurels of a job well done. We always evaluate and assess our performance on every project with an eye toward identifying areas where additional improvements could be made that would benefit our customers.
ISO 9001: Requirements for Excellence in Quality Management

The ISO 9001 requirements a company must meet for certification are centered around the following 7 quality management systems principles:

1. Customer focus
Meeting customer requirements and striving to exceed customer expectations is the pathway to sustainable business success. It’s about understanding the customer’s business and its needs, as well as recognizing how every single interaction with a customer is a chance to create more value to that customer.
2. Leadership
Leaders at every level are the ones who help establish a unity of purpose, direction, and engagement of people to nurture conditions in which alignment of strategies, policies, processes, and resources helps the business achieve its objectives.
3. Engagement of people
A business needs competent people who are engaged and empowered to help the company create and deliver value. People must be respected as individuals and recognized for their contributions to the organization’s success.
4. Process approach
Achieving consistent and predictable quality results requires managing the company’s activities as a coherent system of interrelated processes whose performance can be optimized.
5. Improvement
Organizations are much more likely to achieve sustainable success if they maintain an ongoing focus on improvement.
6. Evidence-based decision making
Effective decision-making that leads to desired results should be based on the analysis and evaluation of data and information for greater objectivity.
7. Relationship management
In today’s interrelated web of the business landscape, sustained success depends in part on managing relationships with all its interested parties (especially supplier and partner networks) to optimize their impact on company performance.

Additional focal points in ISO 9001 when it was updated in 2015 include a greater emphasis on risk-based thinking that requires companies to account for risk and proactive risk mitigation at every stage of the process as well as an emphasis on demonstrating continual improvement of quality management system (QMS) effectiveness tools such as audit findings, corrective and preventive action, and proactive data analysis.

At Global Forming we’re serious about doing right by all these principles in our daily work, and the results we get for our customer clients is the proof it works.

IATF 16949: Quality Standards for the Automotive Supply Chain

This set of standards is important for any company that wants to be part of the automotive industry supply chain, such as being on the International Automotive Task Force (IATF) bid list of supply chain manufacturers. A company must first seek and obtain ISO 9001 certification because IATF 16949 builds upon the ISO 9001 foundation.

The general aim of the standards is the improvement of system and process quality to achieve greater customer satisfaction. This includes identifying problems and risks in the production process and supply chain and eliminating their causes. It’s not about just discovering errors but proactively preventing them. It’s a continuous process examination leading to corrective and preventive measures. Some of the more recent focal points when the standards were updated in 2016 include the following:

Management accountability

There’s a new emphasis on management participation and accountability, as well as leadership engaging in regular review of data, managing action plans, and evaluating KPIs (key performance indicators).

Risk mitigation

IATF 16949 goes further than ISO 9001 in requiring risk analysis and preventive action to be incorporated into different processes.

Embedded software

Product validation, warranty, and troubleshooting processes must include assessment of embedded software, even for outsourced parts.

Product safety

Multi-level control plan and failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) approval are now required.

While much could be written about the specifics of the IATF standards, the point is knowing they are extensive and rigorous. The scope of Global Forming’s IATF 16949 certificate covers the manufacture of roll forming, stampings, and assemblies.

Additional Quality Considerations: Beyond Certifications
While certifications to standards such as ISO 9001 and IATF 16949 are critical to achieve and maintain, it’s worth highlighting particular aspects within those standards that inform our work and are vital to achieving high levels of quality for our customers:
APQP (Advanced Product Quality Planning)
This is a rigorous, structured process we apply to every project, part, and product we work on. Unlike quality control focused on defect detection and rejection, APQP focuses on quality assurance to prevent defects and mistakes in manufactured products by injecting quality considerations and practices early on in every project. The 7 elements and 5 phases of the APQP process were developed within the automotive industry and have become a cornerstone of how we achieve true quality in our products resulting in high levels of customer/client satisfaction.
PPAP (Production Part Approval Process)
One of the outcomes of applying the APQP process is a production part approval process (PPAP), which was developed by the automotive and aerospace industries. It’s a risk identification and mitigation process used to provide evidence to the customer/client to show there is a reliable and repeatable process. It does this by facilitating communication about and approval of production designs and processes before, during, and after manufacture.
SPC (Statistical Process Control)
This is a critical process used within the APQP framework. As the name implies, it uses statistical methods to monitor and control a process to ensure it operates efficiently, producing more specification-conforming products with less waste. Common tools utilized in SPC include run charts, control charts, designing experiments, and an overall focus on continuous improvement.
FMEA (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis)
Another important tool used in the APQP framework, FMEA utilizes inductive reasoning to review as many of a system’s components, assemblies, and subsystems as possible to identify potential failure modes, their causes, and their effects on the rest of the system should they occur. When an FMEA is used as a living document constantly updated throughout a design phase, it can provide valuable guidance in making design decisions.
VDA (Verband der Automobilindustrie)
Global Forming meets the requirements of the VDA (German Association of the Automotive Industry) 6.3, a set of standards that define a process-based audit for evaluating and improving controls in a manufacturing organization’s new product introduction and manufacturing processes. While similar to other automotive industry standards (IATF 16949), it diverges from other approaches to meet Germany’s unique and complex automotive companies.

Additional focal points in ISO 9001 when it was updated in 2015 include a greater emphasis on risk-based thinking that requires companies to account for risk and proactive risk mitigation at every stage of the process as well as an emphasis on demonstrating continual improvement of quality management system (QMS) effectiveness tools such as audit findings, corrective and preventive action, and proactive data analysis.

At Global Forming we’re serious about doing right by all these principles in our daily work, and the results we get for our customer clients is the proof it works.

Production Part Approval Process (PPAP)
The PPAP is how Global Forming ensures customers can have confidence in our part and component production processes. What’s at stake is achieving the triple win for customers regarding quality, efficiency, and cost effectiveness. The PPAP is a critical tool for meeting a customer’s requirements the first time and every time. There are 18 elements to a standard PPAP, each with required documentation, that keep everyone on the same page throughout the project.

The PPAP process verifies Global Forming understands the customer’s engineering design specifications and requirements, and that our process is capable of consistently producing parts and components meeting those requirements during an actual production run at the quoted production rate.

Global Forming: Your Quality Partner for Metal Parts and Components

Earning and maintaining these quality management system certifications and using all the right quality tools and techniques is no easy feat, but it’s an important proof of our deep commitment to quality results and customer client satisfaction. We look forward to sharing what we can do for you when it comes to metal parts and components shaped by roll forming, stamping, or stretch-bending, along with welding and assembly services as needed. Get in touch through the contact us page of our website, by phone at 317.290.1000, or by email to rfox@globalforming.us to start the conversation.

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