Bradken Engineered Products reports that its foundries in Atchison, KS, St. Joseph, MO, and Amite, LA, have been certified to the ISO 9001:2008 standard. The ferrous foundries had been certified to the ISO 9001:2000 standard, but were audited to the new standard in early January.
The ISO 9001:2008 standard was released on December 15, 2008. The International Standards Organization establishes and issues the auditing standards for industrial and manufacturing quality, among other standards.
Bradken’s Engineered Products division designs and manufactures large-sized, engineered ferrous sand castings, machined components and assemblies for companies in energy, mining, railroad, and mass transit industries. Based in Kansas City, it has manufacturing plants in Atchison, KS; St. Joseph, MO; Tacoma and Chehalis, WA; Amite, LA, and London, ON. It maintains a trading office in Xuzhou, China.
According to John Cory, v.p.-Quality & Technology (Atchison/St. Joseph): “This is an important advancement, since these Bradken facilities are amongst the first to attain this certification not only in the company, but also in the U.S.A.”
In a separate matter, the Amite foundry was awarded the Caterpillar Inc. Supplier Quality Excellence Process Certification, measured according to the MQ11005 standard - Silver Level. “We are now among an elite group of global steel foundries to achieve this level of quality certification,” according to Neil Sweet - executive vice president (Amite).