H&S Specialties, Inc.

H&S Specialties, Inc., located in Glenwood, Minnesota, is a custom plastic injection and mold building company. Established in 1992, this 12-person, family-owned company specializes in short to medium-length production runs, utilizing machines from 28 to 200 tons. H&S Specialties provides additional value-added services including engineering design assistance, full production assembly, machining, and bonding. H&S Specialties operates from a single production facility and serves clients across the U.S.

The Situation

H&S Specialties’ customers were satisfied with the products they received, but over time, many were requesting that the company be ISO 9001:2015 certified. Although H&S Specialties had business processes and documentation in place, they found that without certification they were spending a lot of time providing extra documentation for their clients. They also wanted to improve how their processes were documented, secure their client base through certification, and ensure the viability of the company with a proven business management system.

The Solution

To help H&S Specialties learn about the ISO certification process, Enterprise Minnesota began by conducting a quality management system (QMS) assessment, which gave the company a baseline for how it was performing vs the ISO standard and what needed to be achieved or improved to meet the standard.

Following the assessment, H&S worked with Enterprise Minnesota expert Keith Gadacz to learn how to operate the business using the ISO 9001:2015 framework and close the documentation and process gaps that were uncovered. Over the course of the project, Keith explained the ISO system to all the employees and staff, so everyone understood what to expect. He walked H&S’ lead auditors through the ISO process and helped the company develop the documentation necessary to meet the standard. By the end of the project, H&S Specialties had created a business management system that was simple and easy to use, and they passed both their initial certification and recertification with no issues.

The Results

  • Successfully passed ISO 9001:2015 certification and stage 1 audit
  • 12 created or retained jobs
  • $1,400,000 in new or retained sales
  • $85,000 in new investment
  • $30,000 in cost savings

Keith handled our project very well. He was able to walk us through the process and come up with a simple system that maps everything we do. We passed the certification and recertification with no issues at all. He covered ISO well and trained us very well. Everything went very smoothly.

Greg Hjelm  •  President

H&S Specialties

Learn more about Enterprise Minnesota ISO certification and audit support services.