Ebble Group Achieve ISO 9001 Quality Standard

Ebble Group, consisting of equipment sales at Tantec-UK Ltd and manufacturing arm Ebble Manufacturing Ltd celebrate the achievement of attaining ISO 9001 during 2021. Taking advantage of the numerous national shutdown periods during the covid 2020 period, we managed to evaluate, document and introduce process and procedures in to the business ahead of full return to operation.

“Since starting the business, we have had ambitions to grow and give our customers consistently high quality service. We found that as we grew, it became harder for us all to know everything and work to the same standards. Taking advantage of the quieter periods during Covid and introducing a quality system has made us think about our operations and make sure what we’re doing is for the right reasons, and is done consistently.” Chris Howey, Managing Director of The Ebble Group explains.

Looking to the future

The world of plasma and corona surface treatment is a growing market area, with more people taking the systems to replace gas or chemical heavy alternatives, or simply designing products with plasma in mind. The green aspect of the processes we work with is continuing to become more and more important with each year.

Working at the capacity we were before ISO 9001, the business did have areas requiring development that might not have been picked up. Since implementing a quality management system (QMS), the company is more streamlined and actively looking for areas of improvement. This is allowing us to identify both internal issues like bottle-neck processes or error prone shipments, and external issues and opportunities like poor supplier performance, or new markets not currently served by our technology.

As the business takes on larger projects and expands into new areas, minimising the risk of process issues is incredibly important.

We have always felt strong in our marketplace, but giving the team space to grow while knowing we all have the same quality and processing requirements means we’re all getting on with more, and not needing to spend as much time checking or asking for help. We found this really useful for stock management and shipping as we took more on to ensure quick and continuous supply of items locally after Brexit. Without our new systems, it could easily have been messy and overwhelming.

Next steps and working with others

Taking on our first quality system has certainly helped, both internally for our team and to give customers confidence that their goods are to the level of quality required. Growing customer retention and ensuring we minimise mistakes to keep everyone happy has always been important and this helps to really demonstrate our commitments.

Ebble Group, an SME in Worcestershire have also identified ISO 14001, IATF/ ISO/TS 16949 and several other standards as possible additions for the business.

With the different ambitions and options we have for growth, we look at several options we can take. Our current carbon footprint and environmental impact is low due to our size, but we want to make sure that stays the same as we take our next steps. Similarly, industry specific standards could be beneficial as we take more manufacturing in house. A big goal for us is to become a renowned and respected business, not just locally but nationally. We might never have the size or resources of JLR or Rolls Royce, but we want to be recognised as doing our bit as a good employer and a forward thinking company.