Detroit Office Obtains ISO
14001 Certification
Highlights commitment to major customer, Ford Motor Company
SCOA's Detroit office is thinking green.
In February 2003, it obtained International Standards Organization
(ISO) 14001 certification, an environmental management system (EMS)
focused on minimizing the impact of business on the environment.
SC headquarters in Tokyo, as well as five other SC offices and
30 SC Group companies, are ISO 14001 certified. It is awarded on
a site-by-site basis, and each office must earn the designation
for its particular location.
The most compelling reason for SCOA Detroit obtaining the ISO 14001
is Ford Motor Company's 2003 Q1 requirements. Currently, Ford Motor
Company encourages its major suppliers to be good corporate citizens
by awarding Q1 status only to those suppliers that have effective
quality systems in place, support minority business development,
and take actions to become more environmentally friendly. In the
automotive industry, obtaining and maintaining Q1 status is a pass
key for doing business with Ford, according to Yoshihiro Fujiura,
SVP and GM, Machinery and Electric Division No. 2. SCOA currently
supplies many products to Ford, such as robots, dynamometers, stamping
dies, radios and conveyors.
While Ford's Q1 requirements were the driving force behind obtaining
ISO 14001 certification, it was not the only reason. In order to
act with integrity, as stated in the Company's Management Principles,
environmental issues must be considered. ISO 14001 mandates that
an environmental policy be established to direct an organization
and establish goals for its environmental system.
When the Detroit office established EMS, a major requirement was
developing a significant enviromental aspects list, which contains
every element in the office's activities that interact with the
environment. This includes anything from paper cups to delivery
trucks controlled by the Detroit office. Each item on the list was
assigned an impact rating number, based on the frequency of use
and its risk, environmental or financial. The impact rating number
was important because it established the office's environmental
objectives. The environmental objectives are used in conjunction
with programs to reduce the Detroit office's impact on the environment.
Monterrey Office Obtains ISO 9001:2000 Certification
The Monterrey Office of Sumitomo Corporation Corporation de Mexico
received ISO 9001:2000 certification at a ceremony in Mexico City
on June 20, 2003.
The firm TUV Rheinland, which awarded them the certification, had
tested the Monterrey office on its methods and processes on May
29-30 for ISO certification. It was the culmination of a six-month
long training process that began in October 2002.
The ISO 9001:2000 quality certification was undertaken by the Monterrey
office to expand business with their existing automotive clients
while demonstrating the viability of its current processes to business
prospects.
"The automotive companies are requiring ISO certification
to control and reduce supplier lists," said Carlos Velis, Executive
Assistant in the Monterrey office, who was the main representative
for ISO certification. "Because we want to expand our business
with these and other companies, we thought it necessary to get this
certification."
The Monterrey office pursued the certification after a request
from one of its biggest clients, Denso Mexico. Many larger companies,
including automotive companies, now require their suppliers to be
ISO certified. This assures companies that supplier standards are
uniform and efficient and can be readilty audited and improved upon.
Because of this, Denso Mexico, a direct auto supplier for GM, Ford,
DaimlerChrysler and Honda, now require their suppliers to be ISO
certified. And since the Monterrey Office is a direct and indirect
supplier to Denso, SC Monterrey needed the certification.
(The automotive business separates its suppliers into tiers. A
tier 1 supplier is a direct supplier to the automotive manufacturer,
while a tier 2 does business with a tier 1 supplier, and so on.)
For its ISO 9001:2000 certification, the Monterrey office enlisted
the help of Interpro, a Mexican firm that specializes in preparing
companies for their ISO certification audit. Interpro helped the
Monterrey office with such things as creating quality manuals, the
correct formats for company documents, the most efficient procedures
and streamling the authorization process.
Starting in October 2002 and continueing to the end of March 2003
when its audit took place, a person from Interpro worked full time
to get the Automotive Division Ready.
The Monterrey office consists of seven people who all work on the
automotive business.It provides plastic injection molds for car
parts to Denso Mexico. Other auto related businesses for the office
include supplier services for dealers, automotive financial companies
and other parts makers.
So what are the results? According to Mr. Velis, they can already
see the usefulness in dealing with both internal and administrative
issues and outside vendors and how ISO certification helps them
to better manage complaints within and outside the company.
"The results are measureable," said Mr. Velis. "In
previous complaints with suppliers, we would take action and then
2 or 3 months later, the same problem would arise, and we would
need to go over it again. This way we find the root cause and fix
it.
"It has made things easier," continued Mr. Velis. "
Now all our work is more coordinated and there are benchmarks to
compare ourselves against."
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