This summer, Wenco International Mining Systems successfully completed recertification for two ISO standards: ISO 45001:2018 Occupational Health and Safety and ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management Systems. These certifications form a major part of Wenco's approach to working with customers and delivering quality solutions safely to our customers.
Here's a quick rundown on these two ISO standards and what they mean for our customers and business partners.
ISO — A Global Standard of Quality
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) works to develop worldwide standards that cover a broad range of technical and business fields. Two of these standards — ISO 45001:2018 and ISO 9001:2015 — set out requirements and best practices in two areas crucial to the implementation and use of mining solutions: occupational health and safety and quality management systems.
Certification in these standards confirms that Wenco relies on systems and processes that meet or exceed international expectations. Anywhere in the world, mining companies can trust that Wenco delivers this high level of safety and quality with every solution we deploy.
What's required for ISO 45001:2018 Occupational Health and Safety certification?
Together, these policies and procedures ensure any users of Wenco solutions that the company, its employees, and its contractors all operate at a global standard of health and safety.
While Wenco has followed a rigorous set of health and safety practices for decades, ISO 45001:2018 certification assures the mining community that those practices meet an internationally recognized level.
The ISO requires a proactive, preventive, and participatory approach to occupational health and safety. While recognizing the principle of continual improvement, Wenco maintains policies and procedures that set out how workers stay informed of health and safety issues, how they access resources needed to work safely, and how they can report any potential hazards they find. Monthly audits review new safety issues, develop plans to correct them, and confirm the effect of previous corrections.
What about ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management Systems?
Similarly, certification under ISO 9001:2015 confirms that Wenco follows a standardized approach for assuring the quality of our solutions.
For this certification, Wenco formalized its use of the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle. PDCA is an established method for continually improving processes and products. Our quality management team holds monthly audits to identify areas that can benefit from this process, discuss non-conformities, and devise solutions that continually improve on our current levels of quality.
Through PDCA, our customers can trust that every solution from Wenco has been developed to ISO-level standards of quality and that Wenco is committed to its continual improvement. This process is part of our commitment to delivering the highest quality solutions to the customers who rely on them every day.
The Importance of ISO Standards for Mines
Any company can claim to offer high quality solutions. ISO certification unequivocally shows the importance that Wenco places on both quality and health and safety. In certifying to ISO 45001:2018 and ISO 9001:2015, Wenco gives our international customers an unmatched level of trust that our products, services, and operational practices maintain the same consistently high level anywhere in the world — and that they will continually improve in the future.
For more information about Wenco's health and safety program, quality management processes, or ISO certification, please contact us at info@wencomine.com or 604.270.8277.