In 1992, Solar Turbines in San Diego became one of the first companies in the U.S. to be certified to the international quality standard ISO 9000. Six years later it received the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
According to Tom Dadson, senior lead auditor in DNV, Solar Turbines is at the top of the list of companies that have embraced the ISO 9000 quality management philosophy at the highest levels. It has used the ISO 9000 standard as a foundation to build a business focused on quality.
Reduced production time
To approach new markets abroad we had to look at what was required to be accepted as an international supplier to our market segments, says Peter Heavey, Solars director of Engineering Operations Oil and Gas. Customers required a quality system that was internationally accepted. We decided on ISO 9000. Now we have built up an advanced quality system based upon formalised procedures. We have tightened up documentation of how we do our business, to increase the awareness in the organisation. It has become a living system that has made our production more efficient.
At our Kearny Mesa facility in San Diego one items production time has been reduced from 100 to 27 days during the past four years. If something goes wrong during testing the product goes back to the workstation where it was originally produced. That station then is responsible to resolve any problems occurring during testing. In this way the workstation owns the product from start to end, which contributes to a more efficient and streamlined production than when it was split up between different production units.
Continuous improvement
From original implementation in the early 1990s, when ISO 9000 was a procedure- and document-oriented standard, it has become more and more process oriented in line with Solars business philosophy.
Solar is now going beyond the original ISO 9000 standard by implementing continuous self-assessment of all procedures in its system on a monthly basis. By empowering people to access their own workplace on a regular basis we use feedback as a tool for continuous improvement, says Heavey. We are happy to see that by implementing ISO 9000 we have managed to lay the foundation for a system that is helping us combine business and quality into a successful entity. We have become more process-oriented in the way we operate our quality system, which enables us to be more solution-focused towards our customers.
Core of a good system
Going through the process of being considered for the Malcolm Baldrige Award was a testament to how well Solars quality system worked. It was a goal for us to learn from this process, says Edward J. Zell, director of Turbomachinery Operations. Prior to the award we were reviewed by a group of quality experts who gave us valuable feedback on how our system worked and what needed to be improved. It was encouraging to win the award, but most important for us was going through the review process and gaining an impartial look at the whole business. The continuous feedback system proved to be satisfactory, and this is the core of a good quality system: having a living experience feedback system that contributes to continuous improvement in a company.
Cost benefits
Solar Turbines has had a relationship with DNV for the past 20 years. At first DNV certified equipment for oil exploration in the North Sea; now it has extended cooperation into such services as type approval of engines for marine propulsion, manufacturer product quality assurance and compressor and generator package certification.
DNV conducted preliminary assessments of the Solar Turbines plants in late 1991. During the early part of 1992, certification assessments were performed and the original ISO 9000 certificates date back to March 1992. Since then DNV has been maintaining a surveillance of Solars quality management systems every six months. Solar is a prime user of the new ISO 9001:2000 Standard, which is based on the following quality management principles:
" customer focus
" leadership
" involvement of people
" process approach
" system approach to management
" continual improvement
" factual approach to decision making
" mutually beneficial supplier relationships.
A handful of companies are recognised for their integrity, and DNV is one of them, says Denice Thiss, manager of Product and System Certification Power Systems Operations. We value the long-term relationship because it meets our expectations in terms of value. Our business is continuously exposed to customer review of every item throughout production. If DNV had done a bad job, our customers would have noticed. We experience cost benefits by making use of a world-wide company. We no longer need repetitive audits by all customers, as most approve the work executed by DNV.