Redlands, California, USA - [ASDWire] - January 22, 2007 - Advatech Pacific, a fast growing, high-tech engineering company located in Southern California, has received ISO-9001-2000 Certification. This accomplishment formalizes internal quality-driven processes, improves customer responsiveness, provides greater hardware/software product quality, and allows the company to aggressively pursue a broader set of customers for their SW modeling and simulation, engineering tool development/integration, satellite communications equipment development, and engineering design and analysis services.

Certification to ISO quality standards is not easy for any company. It's time consuming and expensive, particularly in terms of manpower. For a small aerospace business like Advatech Pacific, Inc. (API) with fewer than 100 employees, it can be a long process requiring a commitment of the top management and owners, significant research, and hours of analyzing and documenting processes used in the company as well as preparing new processes and procedures. It can occupy as much as 20 percent of the company's leaders' time for months. Insert into the mix the implementation of a new software-driven document control system and a move of the corporate headquarters and one of the divisions at the same time and the challenge is magnified.

In June 2005, Advatech Pacific, Inc., motivated by a desire to be a more aggressive contender in the Defense and Aerospace industry, established a company initiative with a goal of certification to ISO 9001-2000 before year end 2006. Mr. Robert Keltner, Advanced Technology (AT) Division Quality Manager, began a study to determine which set of ISO 9000 standards would be required and appropriate for certification of the company. As an engineering company not yet involved in manufacturing, the selection of which standards would be appropriate for the company took Mr. Keltner and the rest of the core team just over six months.

The actual effort to qualify for ISO certification began in earnest in March 2006. The core team consisted of General Manager, Charles Kondrack; AT Division Quality Manager, Robert Keltner; Information Systems (IS) Manager, David Williams; Lead Auditor, Dana Sherrell; and the Analysis & Design (AD) Division Quality Manager (Tempe, Arizona), Tom Felesi. To start, the core team chose an ISO 9001 consultant, Mr. Robert Eatinger of Scientific Quality Management (SQM), to assist them in the certification process. In addition, an ISO 9001-2000 Implementation Plan was developed and initiated for this major company effort through several management and key personnel meetings.

The team performed a "gap analysis" to identify all areas of the business not already in compliance with the quality standards and prepared an implementation plan with specific responsibilities and milestones to close the gaps. The consultant conducted training sessions for all employees so that everyone would understand the purpose and process of certification. At the same time, the company selected and implemented a new software document control system so that all ISO 9001-2000 documentation would be controlled, but also available for use company-wide to all employees through the company's information enterprise network. Mr. Eatinger also trained the internal audit team and used the pre-assessment audit as an on-the-job training opportunity for the newly formed team. "Advatech Pacific has a bunch of really bright people who focus on the job to be done," said Mr. Eatinger.

At the same time, Advatech Pacific, with a reported growth rate of more than 400% over a five year period, had outgrown its facilities. The company had selected and leased a new, larger building at 1849 N. Wabash in Redlands, California with a move-in date of 30 October 2006; the same time frame as the scheduled ISO 9001 assessment audit.

Advatech Pacific proved to be up to the challenges. All active contracts and programs remained on schedule, the move was completed just in time for the audit, the new software driven document control system was implemented in time for use by the audit team to access documents, and the audit resulted in only four minor non-conformances. According to the Certification Auditor, for an initial ISO 9001-2000 Certification Audit this was significantly smaller number than most initial assessment audits. He also complemented Advatech Pacific on their professionalism and outstanding cooperation during the audit.

Certification to ISO 9001-2000 makes the company eligible to compete for a wide range of contracts and subcontracts that might otherwise be unavailable. Though challenging and expensive, the company management is proud of their employees and their achievements in securing the certification. General Manger Chuck Kondrack said, "Yes, we're proud of our employees' achievement in getting certified, but really, it's business as usual for us. We strive hard to treat all our customers the same way and to provide them with high quality services and products."


About Advatech Pacific, Inc.
Advatech Pacific, Inc. is a fast growing, advanced engineering and technology firm of engineers and scientists incorporated in February 1995 and headquartered in Redlands, California. It has three divisions, the Advanced Technology (AT) Division located in Redlands, the Space & Missile (SM) Division located in Palmdale, California, and the Analysis and Design (AD) Division located in Phoenix, Arizona. Advatech Pacific specializes in developing software engineering tools and providing services to solve complex multidisciplinary problems for the Aerospace and Defense industry. Specific business areas are aircraft design & analysis including composites, aircraft and marine propulsion systems, spacecraft on-orbit and re-entry, subsonic to hypersonic flight vehicles, space launch vehicles, and highly mobile, integrated tactical satellite communications for the military and first responder interoperability.


For further information please contact:
Kenneth Moore
Vice President Business Development
Advatech Pacific, Inc.
Virginia Office: 703-815-0757
California Office: 909-307-6218 X360
Cell: 703-629-8694


Source: http://www.asd-network.com/press_detail_B.asp?ID=10979