Quality Control

Key Handling Systems maintains an ISO 9001:2000-registered quality system. The company achieved registration after an intensive, year-long development and implementation process covering all key functions in the areas of design, engineering, installation, fabrication, system integration, and project management. Key Handling Systems’ quality system meets the latest revision of ISO standard known as ISO 9001:2000.

Key’s ISO 9001:2000 quality system covers the following elements:

Quality Control Policy

Quality is job Number ONE for every person on the Key Handling Systems' team.
Our quality goal is to develop, engineer, manufacture, install and commission conventional and automated sorting systems that provide total customer satisfaction.

We will successfully achieve our goals through continuous improvement of our performance, service, products and systems.

Quality Control Mission

Key Handling Systems' operates under the principle that QUALITY IS MEETING THE REQUIREMENTS THE FIRST TIME …EVERY TIME.  At Key, we firmly believe that a good measurement of quality is how much it costs when we do not DO IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME. In our industry, the costs associated with not meeting requirements in a timely manner are enormously high. Therefore, in this highly competitive environment, quality is often the stone that can tip the scale in favor of one supplier over another. We thus strive every day to instill an attitude that ZERO DEFECTS is the only acceptable level of performance.

We emphasize CONTINUOUS QUALITY IMPROVEMENT in our daily operations. We have thus instituted cultural change within the organization, whereby every employee is encouraged to develop and maintain an environment where quality aspects are considered all the time, while striving toward the goal of ZERO DEFECTS in every aspect of our jobs.

Part of this culture change involves shifting the focus of our operations from reactive (fixing problems after they occur) to PROACTIVE, in an effort to FIND AND ELIMINATE ROOT CAUSES.

Key's products in the field provide the most outspoken and long-lived testimony to our ability to supply customers with quality products and services. However, to achieve our goals as stated above, we encourage our employees to embrace the idea that quality improvement does not begin and end at the job site or on the shop floor. Since Key Handling Systems is a highly interdependent technical organization, we all rely heavily on one another for information and support.

Due to this interdependence, we are all in fact customers and suppliers to each other. Therefore, as a truly quality-oriented organization, our goal of zero defects extends not only to the manufacture and installation of our products, but to all aspects of our jobs. This means clearly defining the requirements we place on external as well as internal suppliers, while understanding and meeting all requirements placed on us by our customers.

Quality Control Operation

Every Key Handling Systems' employee is trained for their job function and in the Quality System. The Project Manager and Quality Manager oversee the subcontractors to ensure their work complies with their own quality procedures and the Key Quality System.

As a system integrator, we impose appropriate requirements and constraints on our suppliers. As a matter of course, we roll down applicable contractual requirements. Therefore, all Key suppliers are expected to submit and adhere to quality plans. We also expect suppliers to provide and deliver products and services in accordance with the clients project requirements and our own standards, including our ISO 9001 quality management system. We then manage the program using proven program management techniques and the tenets of ISO 9001.

Key Site Superintendents are responsible to ensure that subcontractors on-site adhere to contract specifications as well as the requirements of our quality system. Flow-down requirements are promulgated at the start of the job, and are monitored continuously via daily interaction by the Key Site Superintendent. Interactions include formal and informal meetings, and in-process inspections.

The system allows for the QC function to conduct inspections of manufacturing processes and ensure that applicable engineering specifications and changes are incorporated into the equipment, with appropriate corrective actions performed where necessary. Any deviations found during in process inspections are corrected in the shop before further processing and shipment. Final inspection verifies that all deliverable items meet all requirements and strictly adhere to the design drawings.

Our quality system includes provisions for post-project evaluations at the end of a job, and customer surveys while the completed project is under warranty. Also, we encourage our customers site personnel to inform us of any quality problems, so that we can resolve them as quickly as possible.