CLACKAMAS, OR – Contact Industries, a moulding, millwork and wood components manufacturer with significant presence in the commercial and residential construction markets, recently earned ISO 9001:2008 Certification from National Quality Assurance, USA (NQA). The certification verifies that Contact's Quality Management System is such that the company is able to consistently provide products that meet customer and applicable legal requirements and that Contact aims to enhance customer satisfaction, including processes for continual improvement. ISO 9001:2008 Certification represents the most stringent and up-to-date level of ISO compliance and certification.
Contact was previously certified to the ISO 9001:2000 Standard. In order to maintain its certification the company is required to have annual audits and it must undergo a more rigorous audit of its quality management system every three years. Contact chose to apply for the recently updated ISO 9001:2008 Certification during its regular audit in order to ensure its quality management systems meet the highest standards.
"We could have waited to upgrade our certification, but our preference is to be proactive, thereby assuring our customers that our quality standards and systems will always meet their expectations," says David Shayegi, product quality director at Contact's manufacturing plant in Prineville, OR.
In addition to earning the ISO 9001:2008 Certification, Contact recently became recertified under the Forest Stewardship Council's (FSC) Chain of Custody Certification program. This re-certification, conducted by Scientific Certification Systems (SCS), provides verification that Contact Industries has the appropriate systems in place to offer FSC Chain of Custody Certification for its veneer profile wrapped mouldings, millwork and components. With FSC certification, Contact's products can be used to earn as many as eight different LEED® credits. LEED, an acronym for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a program used by the U.S. Green Building Council to rate sustainability in buildings.
In order for wood used in sustainable buildings to earn credits toward LEED certification, the products must carry FSC certification. FSC Chain of Custody Certification indicates that the certified organization has the ability to purchase FSC-certified wood products and that there are sufficient inventory controls in place to ensure that those FSC certified products are not commingled with non-certified products. For more information about the Forest Stewardship Council and its various certifications, visit www.fscus.com. To learn more about the LEED Green Building Rating System, visit www.usgbc.org/leed.
According to Peter McKibbin, VP of sales and marketing for Contact, the decision to maintain FSC Chain of Custody Certification was a natural. "Thanks to their resource-efficient nature, our products have been recognized for their environmental attributes by architects, designers and others in the commercial and residential building industries for years. As FSC began to gain momentum as the certification that symbolizes sustainability in wood-based building products, we acknowledged that by earning our own certification. Our customers were asking for it and we felt it was the right thing to do."
To learn more about Contact Industries' certifications, e-mail [email protected] or call (800) 547-1038.
About Contact Industries
Contact Industries' veneer wrapped solutions and advances in adhesive technology eliminate de-lamination concerns and allow their products to perform better than the solid woods they replace. Contact Industries is capable of wrapping any species of real wood veneer over profiles in almost any substrate, including metal, vinyl, fiberglass and a variety of wood composite materials. In addition to wood veneers, Contact is also capable of wrapping synthetics such as printed and embossed vinyls and impregnated cellulose over both wood and non-wood substrates. After completing an extensive accreditation process, Contact Industries was awarded Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Chain of Custody Certification. To find out more, call (800) 547-1038 or visit the Contact Web site at www.contactind.com.
For more information about this press release or other Contact Industries news, contact Timm Locke of Pipeline public relations + marketing: (503) 546-7811.
