In 2023, KWM launched a series of audits in the area of quality management. “Traditionally” the first ISO 9001 audit is carried out by DEKRA in February, but the “audit year” of this year began already in January with the company Jungheinrich.

The audit by Jungheinrich took place on 23. and January 24, 2023 took place and we scored a result of 90%. We were able to show the customer the strengths of KWM. Although the clearance was granted, it was found that the current requirements for work preparation, in particular test planning, traceability, documentation and disclosure of calculations, are currently not feasible, mainly due to capacity reasons. The development of a further business relationship has therefore been postponed.

In February, the monitoring audit in accordance with ISO 9001 was carried out by DEKRA. Prof. Dr. Neumann was on site for three days and put a strong focus on improvement potentials. Due to lower capacity utilization at the beginning of the year, this audit did not have to address resource bottlenecks. Rather, it had to be shown how to deal with too little work and maintain productivity. There were no discrepancies, but the auditor made a number of suggestions for improvement that should be used and implemented as part of the continuous improvement process.

The Generic Process Audit by Alstom took place in March. This is required to be approved as a supplier and must be repeated every three years to remain approved permanently. The audit was carried out on 16. and 17 March 2023. KWM achieved a score of 89. 5%. Since there were no major deviations, we obtained the qualification status “Qualified”. The score shows that we have a solid base, but there is also potential for improvement.

In addition to the Generic Process Audit, a Special Process Audit was carried out in the area of welding. On 23 November 2022, the audit was carried out and the minimum score of 80 was reached. However, there were four main discrepancies that had to be addressed in order for the audit to be considered as passed. The measures relating to the deviations were implemented in the first quarter of 2023, so that this audit is also deemed to have passed and KWM Weisshaar is classified by Alstom as “Qualified” in the welding sector.

The audits in 2023 have shown that KWM is continuously striving to improve quality and processes. The results and suggestions from the audits serve as the basis for our further continuous improvement process.