Scotsman Silver Award Release

Donnelly Custom Manufacturing Earns ISO 9001:2000 Certification
Achievement Reflects Donnelly's Ongoing Quest to Provide Exceptional Customer Value

March 5, 2004, Alexandria, MN — Donnelly Custom Manufacturing has earned its ISO9001:2000 Certification, it was announced by Ron Kirscht, president of the company. The certification reflects Donnelly's commitment to continuously provide exceptional service and value to its customers. And to setting the standard for How Short Run Is Done.

According to Kirscht, "Customer satisfaction and continuous improvement are the driving forces behind the new ISO 9000 standards. The standards require greater involvement from the leadership team to set and deploy organizational values, to provide short and longer-term direction and to establish performance expectations. It also requires ongoing participation from people at all levels of the organization. This has been the foundation of Donnelly's culture and success for many years."

According to Rick Knutson, the Quality Assurance Manager who led the project, Donnelly was well on its way to implementing many of the required changes when the formal certification process began in the fall of 2002. "The certification process gave us a framework to prove and demonstrate the commitment that exists throughout our organization to focus on customers, to develop processes throughout our organization that ensure continuous improvement and to define a quality management system that supports and confirms this commitment."

The process took about one year to complete. The first six months were dedicated to developing the transformation process, and the remainder to operating and refining the system. Donnelly completed the ISO audit and received its certification to the new standard in December 2003. The first surveillance audit was completed in mid-February and no non-conformities were noted.

"This was a big hurdle for our team, and we passed with flying colors," Knutson said. "There were actually four items designated as 'best practices' by the audit team. These included Management Review of the Quality System, the Supervisor Process Audit, Management Leadership Involvement in Internal Audits and the Conduct of Improvement Projects. Overall, the auditors were impressed with our adoption of lean manufacturing, a number of our continuous improvement events, the dedication of our team and the progress we're making in our quality journey," he added.

According to Kirscht, the investment in ISO certification is one that has a significant return. "Our commitment to our customers is to continually look for ways to provide exceptional service. And to add value in ways others cannot. The ISO 9001:2000 certification is one way we're fulfilling on that commitment."

Based in Alexandria, MN, Donnelly's 220 employees are dedicated to setting the standards in the custom injection molding marketplace for "How Short Run Is Done." The company's focus is on providing its OEM customers with value added engineering, and highly customized manufacturing and customer support services. A strong customer service orientation ensures that customer satisfaction levels exceed industry standards at every point of contact.