ISO 9001:   WHAT IT ALL MEANS

ISO 9001 standards have been adopted in over 150 countries worldwide, primarily in Europe and Asia, but Canada and Mexico have started to catch up, and the United States is joining that group.  

Founded in 1947 in Geneva, this international organization promotes standards that serve as a guideline for establishing, maintaining and improving an effective quality management system for any business organization. The process is designed to facilitate and enable consistency of a product or service and thereby ensure that customer requirements are met or exceeded. The word ISO is Greek and means "same (or) equal" and seeks to guarantee that everything in the manufacturing process does not deviate from the accepted standard. ISO 9001 is the highest level of the worldwide standard system and means that the certificated holder also does research and product development as well as meet all other requirements of this, the world's foremost quality system.

The program took Unitone two years and cost over $100,000. We were obliged to write over 3,500 pages of procedures that covered every facet of our operations, resulting in Unitone becoming a fully turn-key company. Internal auditors constantly evaluate every process and periodically, outside auditors are brought in for verification. Every six months a Registrar is sent in to aduit all processes and if deficiencies of any kind are found, we are given 30 days to correct or lose our cerification. A continual improvement model is mandated and every procedural change is subjected to cause and effect analysis before being adopted by every department. Since Unitone, prior to embarking on this difficult project operated by the age old system of management by crisis, the changes over these several years have been dramatic. During this period:  

• Our logged customer complaints have dropped by 84% while our company has doubled in size. 
• Our cartridge fail rate has continued to drop to less than 1% for all reasons!
• Our fulfillment rate (orders shipped same day received) has risen to 95% from the low 70's.
• Our personnel turn-over has dropped in half due to continually improved working conditions.
• The improved acceptance level of our products and corporate image has validated our customer's decisions to rely on Unitone to a noticeably greater degree and they are pleased! 

The world-wide acceptance of ISO 9000 products and services by technically savvy goverment agencies, universities and technology corporations makes these products easier to sell and facilitates their decision making process: Our product packaging aids them in making the choice:

This product is assembled in an ISO 9001 certifed facility

Because of our certification, Unitone has been able to approach the European Union and obtain the coveted CE mark which is the harmonized certificate of acceptance and conformity in all of the European Union. 

Unitone, to our knowledge is the only cartridge rebuilder in the United States to hold both ISO 9001 and CE mark. The ISO 14001 environmental standard is next.