When the executive committee of Siemens Water Technologies division announced the commitment to pursue a continuous improvement process and ISO Registration, customers and industry associates alike responded in a similar fashion: “Why?”

That didn’t surprise division manager Ken Hollidge.  “In the eyes of the customer, nothing was really broken, so why try to fix it,” said Ken. “This is a unique push in wastewater.  Most companies in our industry are not required by their customers to be ISO registered. What’s more, our customers had historically been happy with our products. We could have easily stayed the course, but we recognized that the growing complexity of our product line and of our typical installations, together with a more competitive global marketplace, required us to be proactive in our quality management. Our end product was good, yes, but the process to get there needed improvement.  So, we launched a continuous improvement process in December of 2003 and validated it through an independent audit required of ISO-9001:2000 in January 2006.”

The Holland, Michigan Water Technologies Division of global giant Siemens is the maturation of JWI, a company founded in Holland, Michigan in 1976 by John and Linda Vanden Bos. Originally known for high quality centrifuges, the company gained worldwide recognition for the J-Press®, a line of filter presses designed to dewater inorganic sludge in processes such as metal finishing, mining and wastewater. In 1996, USFilter purchased JWI Inc. and became USFilter/JWI, joining the world’s premier water company, providing water and wastewater systems and services to industrial, commercial and municipal customers globally.  Within two years, USFilter/JWI had become USFilter Dewatering Systems and USFilter’s center for dewatering excellence, taking on responsibility for other USFilter dewatering equipment brands such as CPC, Perrin, Envirex and Edwards & Jones.

This continued growth and fast-paced R & D work created a need to ensure processes were controlled and effective to meet customer requirements.  The company began implementing problem solving techniques and continuous improvement programs to control and monitor its systems and processes.

“Our dewatering projects have become much more specialized, more customized than ever before, with extended design and manufacturing schedules incorporating numerous technologies,” continued Ken. “If you’re building a multi-million dollar filter press system for installation in China, you better have the processes in place to ensure everyone knows what happens, when it happens and where it happens.”

The company developed a Continuous Improvement Process by embracing Philip Crosby’s Four Absolutes of Quality.  A cross-functional steering committee was formed to oversee the implementation process. This Continuous Improvement Team (CIT) formed multiple corrective action teams to work on processes that they identified as out of control.  Each Corrective Action Team (CAT) consisted of 4-6 associates from different departments.  Once the process was corrected, the team was disbanded and the process then monitored by departmental workgroups. More than 45 different metrics for product quality and corporate systems are now being continuously measured by the workgroups.  All metrics that are not meeting their goal go through a problem solving process where Corrective Action is determined and applied.

Cutting Waste, Improving Profitability