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Background: 

Amatrol has a rich history beginning in 1964, when Don and Roberta Perkins founded its original parent company, Dynafluid, Inc. Dynafluid was an industrial automation systems manufacturer that designed systems for many Fortune 500 companies including Coca Cola, General Electric, Alcoa, Ford, Chrysler, and others. Amatrol was created as the educational division of Dynafluid to provide training to industrial clients for new technologies like those being implemented in Dynafluid’s systems. Dynafluid was in a unique position to effectively develop training programs for these technologies because its engineers and technicians were thoroughly familiar with the design, application, and maintenance of them.

Amatrol, short for Automated Machine Controls, was founded in 1978 as a division and was formally incorporated as a separate company in 1981. Since that time Amatrol has grown significantly, becoming the leading company in its primary market segments.

Situation:

Amatrol decided to implement a Quality Management System (QMS) to formally monitor product quality and drive continuous improvement in a structured fashion. Understanding that implementing a QMS into their business would not be a simple task, so they turned to Purdue MEP for assistance.

Solution:

Purdue MEP assisted Amatrol in the implementation of an ISO 9001:2015 based quality system. Purdue MEP provided training and guidance on the use of Kaizan as a tool to foster continuous improvement for their products and processes. 

Results: 

The ISO 9001 work resulted in Amatrol being certified as an ISO 9001:2015 company in 2018. Since that time, they have also engaged Purdue MEP to train Amatrol employees in internal auditing.

The Kaizan work consisted of two Kaizan events moderated by a Purdue MEP expert. Both events had positive outcomes and positioned Amatrol to have further events going forward that they plan to handle independently.

“If it were not for the assistance of Purdue MEP, I know that Amatrol would not be ISO 9001 certified today. Their representative spent the time needed to learn our business and our processes, and then tailored our ISO 9001 system to be compliant to the ISO standard. During that process he also acted as an instructor and mentor to Amatrol staff to train us on widely accepted best practice models. To go from not having any QMS experience to being fully certified in one year is a big step, which we could not have accomplished without Purdue MEP’s guidance."

- Mike Jaynes, Director of Quality Engineering