MacLean ESNA Receives Recomendation for Q1
by Donnie Autry, Product Development Supervisor
posted: April/May 2006

In 2002, Bob Clark obtained a letter from Ford Motor Company indicating their intentions to purchase four parts from MacLean-ESNA for the new 6-speed automatic transmission. This initiated the process for the facility to become Ford Q1 Certified. Plant Manager, Dean Williams, and Assistant Plant Manager, Cliff Hufstedler, provided the necessary top management support to ensure many tasks were completed for a successful certification audit.

Training, Procedural Changes and Audits
DDL training (Direct Data Link) is a requirement for the Q1 certification. Shenna Wilson, Linda Pyles, Beau Hanson and Donald Boucher attended this training in January and February 2005 at the Rotunda Campus in Detroit, Michigan. This training helped employees learn how to track Ford requirements.

In November 2004, Quality Manager, Jim Earley, with the assistance of Corporate Quality Director, Brian Csikos, Kaizen champion, completed MacLean-ESNA’s first Kaizen event. Sharon Pickett, Kenny Barr, Phil Hamlin, Larry Williams, William Haney, Judy Rice and Richard Burgess all worked together to clean, paint, and organize the area in the screw machine department where the four parts would originate. This event was instrumental in the successful launch for the program.

In January 2004, Sharon Pickett and Shenna Wilson attended internal auditor training, beginning the process for the facility’s certification to TS16949. Jim Earley championed the process with the help of the two internal auditors. Several procedures had to be changed and internal audits performed prior to the certification audit.In July 2005, the certification audit was conducted by Underwriter’s Laboratory resulting in certification to the new quality system.

Shenna Wilson also championed the self-assessment of MacLean-ESNA’s conformance to the requirements of the Ford Materials Management Operation Guidelines (MMOG). Shenna verified conformance and gathered the required evidence to show that MacLean-ESNA met the Ford requirements. Shenna will continue to evaluate the facility’s conformance on a yearly basis. A minimum score of 90 is required for Q1 certification.

MacLean-ESNA Implemented ISO14001 Environmental Management System
Ford also requires their suppliers to be ISO14001 registered. ISO14001 is an environmental management system. Ford is concerned with preserving the environment and they want to do business with companies who are concerned with environmental preservation as well. In April of 2003, Donnie Autry attended lead auditor training for ISO14001. He then championed the implementation of an ISO14001 environmental management system at MacLean-ESNA. He, along with a cross functional team consisting of Jim Earley, Cliff Hufstedler, Jerry Priddy, Jeff Orrick, Mary Tate and Steve Thielemier wrote procedures, evaluated environmental aspects and impacts, and educated other employees in order to ensure a successful registration. Sharon Pickett and Shenna Wilson performed internal audits to verify that the facility was ready for the registration audit. The registration audit took place in September of 2003, resulting in the registration to ISO14001.