25 Oct 2001
PolyOne’s Tossiat and Assesse European color additives sites achieve QS-9000 certification
PolyOne has announced the QS-9000 certification of two more of its European sites. The plants, both color concentrate producers, located at Tossiat, France and Assesse, Belgium, are believed to be one of the first in the European masterbatch sector to achieve this auto industry certification.
These latest approvals in Europe, which follow QS-9000 accreditation last year of PolyOne Th. Bergmann, the company’s German engineered compounding facility at Gaggenau, further demonstrate the company’s stated aim to continuously improve the quality of products and services delivered to customers.
QS-9000 is an automotive quality system operated by General Motors, Ford Motor Company and Daimler Chrysler, and all suppliers doing business with these ‘big three’ car manufacturers are required to gain certification.
Certification incorporates the rigorous requirements of the ISO 9001 quality standard, and is certified and monitored by independent auditors - in respect of the Tossiat and Assesse sites this is undertaken by the British Standards Institution. Importantly, the combination of ISO quality assessment programs with the QS-9000 system allows suppliers to focus on practices that provide continuous improvement, prevent defects, reduce waste, and increase supply chain efficiency.
“Fundamentally QS-9000 is a business system concentrating on the quality of management in addition to the management of quality,” says Russell Livesey, who, prior to his current appointment as managing director of PolyOne Compounds and Colors UK Ltd., led the program towards certification in his role as the company’s European director of quality.
The QS-9000 certification process involves an extensive, in-depth audit of a company’s overall operating systems by an independent auditor. This is followed by semi-annual surveillance audits that must be successfully completed to retain certification status.
However, according to Livesey: “QS-9000 auditing examines the organisation’s management, through all processes, from its three-year strategic business plan. Focus is on progressive improvement and because of that compliance with framework rules and procedures alone is not enough to gain certification.”
The program to gain QS-9000 certification was initiated by Bernard Baert, PolyOne vice president, international operations. “We committed ourselves to this goal to proactively support our customers who are themselves working towards meeting the system requirements.
“Delivering on that commitment was achieved as a result of engaging all departments in the mission and embracing the philosophy of continual improvement as well as the practical requirements. Consequently we have made significant system improvements in areas such as predictive maintenance, customer service preventative audit programs and in the use of statistical measurement as a result of following the prescribed methodologies. This has given rise to even greater confidence in our operations,” says Baert.
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Notes for editors
About PolyOne:
PolyOne Corporation, with revenues of approximately $3 billion, is an international polymer services company with operations in thermoplastic compounds, specialty resins, specialty polymer formulations, engineered films, color and additive systems, elastomer compounding and thermoplastic resin distribution.
Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, PolyOne has more than 9,000 employees at 80 manufacturing sites in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, and joint ventures in North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Information on the Company’s products and services can be found at www.polyone.com.
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