Sentury Reagents earns ISO 9001:2009 Certification

Sentury Reagents earns ISO 9001:2009 Certification and increases performance with help from South Carolina Manufacturing Extension Partnership (SCMEP)

Company Overview

Sentury Reagents is a chemical manufacturing operation based in Rock Hill, SC. The company was founded in 1974 with the intention of being the world’s largest producer of high purity chrome salts. The family based business continues to expand while still developing high purity chrome salts. Sales have increased every year since 2008 and revenues have doubled since 2004. Additional products include: magnesium chemicals, potassium chemicals, and various organics.

Situation

With its customers in mind, Sentury Reagents decided to improve performance and internal operations by earning an ISO 9001:2009 certification. Management turned to the South Carolina Manufacturing Extension Partnership (SCMEP) to assist with not only the planning and implementation, but ways to cover the cost of the program.

The Solution

SCMEP’s ISO expert began by meeting with management and staff to understand the company’s current procedures. After a thorough review of operations, a training schedule to become ISO 9001:2009 certified was established to coincide with daily operations. The implementation program followed an established step-by-step process that trained all employees involved. SCMEP also notified Sentury Reagents of a grant available through the Catawba Regional Council of Governments which covered 90 percent of the cost of the program.

The Results

Although concerned the ISO program would be overly burdensome, Sentury’s team found the system to be very efficient and worked seamlessly with Sentury Reagents’ business, even increasing performance. Now ISO 9001:2009 certified, their ability to track company and job performance has drastically improved. They are currently running on a 97 percent on-time delivery rate and can produce new materials within two weeks. All 9 employees were retained and, after completion of the project, a Quality Manager was added to handle overall quality systems, ISO reporting, and audits.

Sentury Reagents’ customers are also very pleased with the certification. Multiple surveys are conducted every year by their customers inquiring about the company’s quality system. Now that they have been certified, this saves Sentury time in proving their quality capabilities. Customer surveys now only require checking the ISO box versus providing lengthy descriptions of existing quality efforts.

Testimonials

Jon Ellis, owner of Sentury Reagents

“I would definitely recommend SCMEP’s ISO program. The program is efficient and not overly burdensome like we thought it might have been. It works seamlessly with our business and helps to improve our performance. The staff at SCMEP and the Catawba Regional Council of Governments was very helpful and instrumental in helping us achieve our certification and we want to share our thanks with them.”

Rhonda Huskins, Regional VP at SCMEP

“Sentury Reagents was referred to SCMEP by a neighboring manufacturer whom we had assisted with ISO some 10 years prior. Our ISO expert was able to help Sentury’s management team pull their existing quality policies and documentation into the ISO framework and flush out the full system without placing additional burden on the company. It was a pleasure to work with Sentury and we look forward to the continued relationship.”