Greenville Colorants sees big impact from ISO Certification

Company Overview

Greenville Colorants, located in Greenville, South Carolina, sets the standard in value-added processing and distribution of dyes and specialty chemicals to the textile, paper, and other specialty industries, such as ink plastics, paint, stains, mulch, seed coatings, and more. With their state-of-the-art manufacturing plant, they are able to offer customized products at highly competitive prices due to aggressive global sourcing of raw materials and optimized manufacturing operations. Offering over 2,000 dye products in both liquid and powdered form, Greenville Colorants custom-blends and matches colors based on client-supplied samples and rigorous customer specs and requirements.

Situation

The company was initially looking to become ISO compliant but not necessarily meeting the standard for certification. Greenville Colorants was looking for a way to conform to the ISO 9001 Quality Management System in order to improve processes. They began identifying resources and narrowed it down to four firms.

Solution

SCMEP was selected amongst the four contenders. The program outlined was a practical business approach to creating a confirming ISO 9001 Quality Management System (QMS). This program followed a systematic managed process that created a fully documented QMS in a few months. It also incorporated a day for overall ISO 9001 training, which covered the basics and examined how employees are impacted as well as their responsibilities within the QMS system. Once Greenville Colorants got two-thirds of the way through the program, they realized becoming certified was achievable. The implementation of the QMS system forced them to investigate business processes – things that were being done correctly as well as things that needed improvement.

Results

Not only is Greenville Colorants ISO compliant, but they are now ISO Certified. It has been beneficial in many ways for restructuring the business with their Quality Management System. Once a structure was in place for each individual business process, it allowed them to audit each process and identify ways to improve the quality, efficiency, and productivity of each. One of the greatest benefits that has surfaced is a system called Corrective Action. This system allows them to routinely look at every aspect of the business in terms of things that go wrong. Since they began the QMS system, the company has seen financial contributions of over an estimated $200 million a year that can be directly attributed to the ISO Certification and QMS system. Another large benefit is the ability to interact in a more positive way with customers that are also ISO Certified. This enables Greenville Colorants to take a different posture and position themselves as a certified supplier. In addition, the company added three jobs, increased sales by $1 million, retained sales of $3 million, saw a cost savings of $300,000, increased investment by $50,000 in workforce practices, and increased investment by $200,000 in plant equipment.