The 5 Pillars of our Quality System

Quality doesn’t come naturally, it starts with the right mind spirit transformed into an efficient and effective habit of doing things.
Quality starts with us, from top to down, at the level of every individual.
Quality is the result of our actions that are structurally grouped in The 5 Pillars of our Quality System.

 

Zero Defects

Lesson Learned Data Base. Learning is a long and continuous process along which every mistake or success is a lesson learned. By learning from our success and mistakes, we collect the good manufacturing practices that yield to the desired good quality.
The partnerships we have with important international customers in different industries allow us to have access to an extended valuable source of good practices, that inspire and lead our continuous effort to optimization and improvement.  

 

Poka Yoke. As a way to eliminate product defects by preventing, correcting, or drawing attention to human errors, we use from simple to complex mistake proffing mechanisms, as well as other behavior-shaping constraint designed processes to prevent incorrect operations by the user.
Use of Poka Yoke is definitely indispensable when it comes to security parts in our plastics injection, blowmolding and assembling processes. We aim to extend the use of Poka Yoke for all the products we manufacture, to ensure zero defects to all parts in our production.

 

Quality Methods. In our communication, we are always using the 3-element method of Why What How people should do their job and deliver quality. We are implementing in our production recognized quality methods like QRQC, PDCA, 5Why, as well as the golden rules of Reactivity or 3 No.
And maybe the most effective quality method is the improvement of our operators’ awareness, accountability and understanding that the quality they deliver represents the success of our organization, and the first measure of it is No Claims from our customers.  

 

Standardization

Statutory and Regulatory Requirements. The term is stated in both ISO 9001 and IATF 16949 and it is understood by us as a set of rules to follow, non-negotiable, that we must comply with. Used as an input for all our processes, it insures the positive output that meets the most exigent requirements of our customers. 
The specific requirements related to our products and services in plastics injection industry are determined and communicated across the organization to all functions concerned. The commitment of our top management team ensure the compliance with these requirements.

 

Management System. Our approach is to use the 4-element Plan Do Check Act for a clearer understanding, easier implementation and effective monitoring of the policies and processes requirements of our management system, at all levels and aspects of our activity.
As our organization learns, changes and adapts itself to respond to external business environmental factors, our management system is subject to continuous improvement, in order to ensure that our organization can fulfill the tasks required to achieve our main objectives.

 

Work Stations and Processes. Standardization doesn’t only mean to eliminate activities not generating added-value, enhance productivity and associate continuous improvement actions to the processes, but also to better control quality at work station and all along the process.
Standardization starts from the work station, where the operators are given the complete standardized work toolkit needed to manufacture the part. A bi-directional communication between operators and quality and engineering teams is an effective way to improvement and setting the right standards to reach the expected level of quality.

 

Engagement

Management Commitment. Our top management team is fully committed through its leadership, direct responsibility and participation in the most important aspects of our business: safety, quality, environment, security and all main programmes of the organization.
The top management is also responsible for the leadership and for creating the environement of continuous improvement and not least for the animation and motivation of all levels of management (middle and low) of their engagement and participation to our success.

 

Visual Management. Visual comes easy, at a glance and comprehensive. Visual management comes as a road map of our vision, mission, objectives, strategies and activities. It is an open comunication from the top management to the members of the entire organization.
We ensure by our visual management that all our employees have the information needed for performing their jobs, without having the need of accessing other sources of information. It shows as well in full transparency to our visitors what we do and how we do the value we deliver.

 

Social Responsibility. For being assessed about our Corporate Social Responsibility we have chosen EcoVadis. Their assessement shows us and to our customers our performance in four themes: Environment, Labor&Human Rights, Business Ethics, Sustainable Procurement.
Finally, with an assessment on these four comprehensive evaluation criteria, CSR by EcoVadis can be also seen as a rating for the sustainability of our business, as a sine qua non condition for every long term partnership we want to develop with our customers.

 

Competencies

Training of Personnel. It is still broadly believed that the development of people’s competencies is directly related to the number of hours of training received. Training is important, nonetheless, but we consider equally important the coaching and mentoring of our people.
Learning by doing, improving own’s technique, lessons learned, transfer of know-how, good practices and specialization cannot come but only along with a well structured and intentional process, individual acknowlegment, accountability and good practice.

 

Project Management. When assigned with a new project, we can be either manufacturer or designer and manufacturer for the parts. In our understanding and practice, the project management is the sum of all activities from idea of the customer to the physical part, including testing and validation.
We put in the project management the best competencies we have internally and those of our external collaborators,  whether toolmakers or R&D companies. All allong the project development process, ELJ Automotive is the pilot of all activities and responsible in front of the customer for the final result.

 

Supply Chain Management. We are carefully selecting the best suppliers that are able to match our company’s performance characteristics, established on our business standards and objectives and on our customers’ needs and expectations.
On a daily basis, we are monitoring our suppliers’ performance and output, to ensure that the contract terms are being followed, so that we are able to deliver products and services to our customers according with our contractual obligations.

 

Continuous Improvement

5S Management. In translation, the acronym stands for Orderliness, Organization, Cleanliness, Neatness, Adherence. Based on quality benchmarking in plastics injection industry and the good practices of our main customers in automotive industry we have established a clear evaluation system.
The evaluation criteria are communicated across the organization, implemented at all levels, and permanently monitored in production, wharehouses, offices.  5S Management is present in mind and spirit of our people as a way of working and living in our business community.

 

Sugestion System. The employees' knowledge and ideas represent a valuable resource. We encourage the employee-to-management communication, good ideas to rise from down to top, creativity of our people in all aspects of our business: efficiency, waste, safety, problem solving, decision making.
Brainstorming sessions and sugestion contests are held periodically in order to collect business ideas and opportunities, new solutions for optimization of our plastics injection and blowmolding processes or to improve quality of our products and services.

 

Key Perfomance Indicators. Quality comes along with improvement. And only what is measured, can be improved. We are monitoring both our KPIs as well as our customers’ most specific requirements in terms of performance, quality and delivery.
The first KPI in Quality is Zero Defects.Periodical internal analysis, as well as industrial audits and worshops with our customers are leading to consistent action plans that are put in place in order to correct, improve and reduce to zero the defects in our production.