Quality’s ROI is high

Accreditation, while not cheap, will in most cases eventually pay for itself financially. The public recognizes that certification increases the trust factor and the value of stock prices.

“You start seeing payback within two years, and after that it’s gravy,” says Norfolk. “A large company may see cost recovery in a year.”

“It pays for itself very quickly in terms of customer satisfaction,” says Lamko’s Boyachek.

“Our reworking and errors have gone down, although we haven’t quantified it,” he says.

For Tristar Plastics, the recent May 3-4 final audit for ISO 9002 and the plans for further accreditation have been welcome investments.

“It becomes easy to dedicate resources when you see the drive coming from ground up,” says Nagothu.

Initial employee resistance can sometimes be a problem for a company, but once over the hump of initial implementation, this also tends to improve.

“When I first came here, people complained about procedures”, says Boyachek. “So I defined and documented procedures. For example, the twelve steps to making a mold. Now there are quality control checklists in place after each step.” The idea of now being able to prove that a certain step has been taken is appreciated, as well as the reduced reworking costs and the number of tryouts required to test the molds.

“The general reaction (among employees) is once seen in action, certification procedures work well. It takes awhile to get over the hump. People fear change,” says Norfolk. The key factor is that a quality program shouldn’t be an unwanted imposition, but a welcome change.

“When you’re implementing a quality program you’re doing it because it’s a good idea,” Norfolk says. “It’s the conviction that counts. When you go in kicking and screaming, it’s going to show.”