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Midwest Prototyping, an American rapid prototyping and low volume production company, has announced its operations have been certified compliant with the ISO 9001:2015 standard, an internationally recognised achievement for operational excellence.
One of the nation's largest additive manufacturers, Midwest has become the first independent service bureau to achieve ISO 9001:2015 certification.
Midwest Prototyping has spent close to 18 months working to ensure its quality management system meets the extensive criteria associated with the standard, which centres on enhancing customer satisfaction and continuous improvement. National Quality Associates, Inc., an independent accredited registrar, verified Midwest Prototyping's compliance to the standard.
"For us, obtaining ISO certification is a natural next step," said Steve Grundahl, President and founder of Midwest Prototyping. "As our operations and the additive manufacturing industry have continued to grow, we've seen an increasing number of production and end-use orders for printed parts. This [ISO 9001 certification] is a critical step to create a manufacturing facility for 3D printed, end-use products. If we are going to compete with traditional manufacturing processes, we need to meet them at their level."
Nate Schumacher, Project Leader and ISO 9001 implementation coordinator added: "At its core, ISO 9001 is a business improvement standard. Realistically, what we've done is taken our existing QMS and reshaped it to let us take a closer look at our operations at every level, allowing us to improve them as we continue to grow."
Centred in Geneva, Switzerland, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an independent, non-governmental international organisation which develops and publishes International Standards in collaboration with 163 national standards bodies. Its documentation provides guidelines that can be used consistently to ensure that materials, products, processes and services are fit for their purpose.
Founded in 2001, Midwest Prototyping was recently named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing privately held companies for the last 5 consecutive years. The Blue Mounds-based organisation was also recently named as a 2016 Wisconsin Manufacturer of the Year award winner. Offering multiple 3D printing technologies, urethane casting, and extensive finishing services, Midwest Prototyping has consistently provided quality products and unrivalled customer support, enabling clients of all industries to make better parts, faster.
