The Sky Is the Limit for Radant Technologies; Aerospace Manufacturer Achieves ISO Certification
In the manufacturing world, quality and precision are vital components for producing quality parts and products and they have a direct impact on the success of a company. When those parts are being used in aircraft that members of the United States armed forces are flying into combat, quality and precision take on a whole new level of importance.
Radant Technologies, a Stow, Massachusetts based manufacturer, supplies a variety of customers, including Department of Defense (DoD) contractors, with communications equipment, antennas, and antenna domes called "radomes" used by several branches of the military.
The military and DoD contractors have strict manufacturing standards and requirements for companies they work with and increasingly they require that the companies they work with be certified by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
ISO certification is a global symbol of quality, signifying that companies adhere to the highest level of manufacturing standards. In Radant’s case, one of their larger DoD customers told the company it would need to become ISO 9000 certified in fiscal year 2005 for them to continue working together. While ISO would help Radant maintain its customer base and open new revenue streams, the costs and man-hours spent going through the certification process and annual re-certifications can be expensive.
To help Radant achieve the ISO certification and tap into growth opportunities, the company contacted the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MassMEP). "ISO certification has become so important in manufacturing," said John Roach, MassMEP project manager. "When selecting companies to work with, large contractors will actually use non-ISO certification as a sort of weeding out process. If a company doesn’t have the certification, they immediately get checked off the list."
ISO certification is actually completed in a number of stages. Working with Roach and Incremental Technologies Incorporated, a MassMEP sub-contractor, Radant went through several steps to prepare the company for its ISO audit, including preparing and refining documentation and procedures and conducting training.
"ISO certification is something we were moving towards anyway, but because our customer was mandating we get the certification, we needed to move through the process quickly," said Larry Winroth, Radant Technologies Quality Assurance Manager. "The MassMEP really helped us cut down the timeframe and we hope to complete the certification process by mid-July."
The MassMEP is an affiliate of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) under the U.S. Department of Commerce. For more information on their services for manufacturing companies, see http://www.massmep.org, or phone 1-800-MEP-4MFG.
