ISO in Dowco
Ken Mussato, VP Quality Management

Most of you who have been with us for a while are aware that Dowco is ISO-9001 compliant.  Some of you may not know what that means to you or Dowco.  Simply put, we conduct our business in such a way that we comply with rules and procedures set up to meet or exceed international standards.

The focal point is to provide customer satisfaction while continually improving our quality management system within the company.  Of course, this has a direct impact on each of us as we go about our daily work within the company.  We have set up approved procedures for each operation of the company.  These rules can be found on our intranet and are broken into different segments. - Quality Management, Quality Procedures and Standing Instructions.  These rules are the foundation of our operations.

In order to keep on track, Dowco conducts internal audits throughout the year. These audits review Project management, Quality Management, HR and Purchasing, Product storage and handling.

External audits are also conducted in Whonnock and Toronto once a year and in Burnaby twice a year.  The auditors from BSI Management Systems will usually follow a job from start to finish, asking anyone on the job a few questions.  They are searching for non-conformances and at the same time are noting where improvements can be made.  Fortunately, out internal auditors usually pick up on any problem areas and we do relatively well when audited.  Over the past 2 years we have had a few minor non-conformances and some room for improvements but, overall, we are conducting business as we should.

We will always have room to improve.  We have tools in place to deal with problems and to continually measure, analyze and improve our operations.  One of them is the QI report, which is currently available to every Dowco employee.  Hopefully, it will also be available on-line for our customers in the near future. This is a means of recording problems which can then be brought to the attention of Dowco’s management team to analyze and make recommendations to prevent reoccurrences.

ISO has become the common bond for the operation of all of Dowco’s offices. As we grow, we will need to rely more on our ISO procedures to keep us operating as one united office, despite being physically separated as we are.