Premier Deep Hole Drilling gains AS9100 Rev C

This accreditation, says the company, guarantees that Premier will be able to carry on working with its aerospace customers for another three years, allowing the company to provide a risk-free supply option to other businesses in the tiered supply chains. The St-Albans based company describes itself as one of the UK's largest providers of specialist deep hole drilling, gun drilling and honing services. In explaining the significance of this success, the company says that, unlike the AS9100 Rev B it replaces, which was based on thousands of questions and a checklist that could be audited in a day or so, AS9100 Rev C is process driven. In keeping with that, Premier has identified seven key business processes, each of which is customer-focused. They are sales; manufacturing; purchasing; engineering; human resources; HSE, and quality assurance. "Once you have identified your top level business KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), such as delivery dates, specifications, PPM service levels and OTIF, each individual process is considered for its KPIs, and they contribute towards or impact on the top level KPIs," explains Premier's managing director, Stuart Grant. "It's much less clause-driven and much more how the process works, considering what the effect of that process is and what the results are on the business performance. I think it is a much better system. It was said that Rev C would be an enhancement upgrade but, in reality, it is very different. The structure of your QA manual, the structure of systems and the audit is completely different." Premier says it had already rewritten its quality manual a few years ago, because it had become so unwieldy and, following independent expert advice, it was drafted around processes. It was structured around risk, so no activities undertaken impose any unreasonable business risk. Premier has used FMEA (Failure Mode Effects Analysis) to consider what risks can and do exist, and what the likely consequences for these risks are. "In the audit, you have to take each of your processes and draw them into how your business process flow diagram works, it's a good system and it's a much better way of doing things, as it is much more fundamentally involved in the way the business runs. The lesson we learned is to make sure that you're not doing it because it says so in the book; you're doing it because it is required. If you use it right, it is there to measure the business and is much better than a heap of check sheets and lists," says Mr Grant. AS9100 Rev C has a different level of exposure for each process, with clearly defined KPIs that are linked to the main business KPIs. The managing director continues: "Because of the way it is driven now, we have process reviews that go down to different levels. If we are not performing we get everyone involved, which we have always tended to do, but it is now the process, and it rolls into a problem solving mindset because it's more KPI and results- driven." Mr Grant concludes: "The new system and SC21 are very close and they work very well together. I expect AS9100 Rev C to be positive for us, especially at the Tier 1 level. If a company is considering placing a new project work package with a supplier, they do not really want to be setting up a supply chain that might not be able to continue to supply past the middle of this year." [] Note: A useful guide to the differences between Rev B and Rev C can be found here