Ripley Machine Doubles Down on Quality
Ripley Machine is an ISO Certified CNC machine shop located in Ripley, NY specializing CNC Swiss Turning, Production CNC Turning, Production CNC Milling as well as Centerless, Center and Internal Grinding. The business was founded in 1994 by Quentin Bensink and was previously in operation since the 1970s as Bournand Company. The business was purchased in 2015 by Quentin’s grandson Andy Reinwald.
Shortly after purchasing the business, the new management team aimed for ISO certification. The company had implemented "ISO Compliant" processes previously, but never pursued certification. President Andy Reinwald stated, "The company needed changes to succeed." In 2015, the company hired a consultant to develop procedures and processes that met ISO standards. By Fall 2016, Ripley Machine achieved ISO Certification, marking a significant milestone. However, Reinwald highlighted that it was just the beginning, as they needed to update the quality management system to meet the 2015 ISO Standard within two years.
In Early 2018, Ripley Machine began to re-tool their QMS to meet the standards of the ISO 9001:2015 Standard. As the management team started to dive into the standard, they realized the opportunity for transformation if they embraced the standard instead of merely complying with it. Reinwald states, “When we initially got certified, we certainly did it with the sole goal of being ISO Certified and not with improving our actual processes. We basically just tried to do the bare minimum to meet the standard. As we started to unpack the changes from the 2008 to the 2015 standard, we started to have more serious internal discussions and started to really embrace how we could use the ISO Standard and our QMS to positively transform our business.”
As the business began to modify its QMS to meet the ISO 9001:2015 standards, it began to embrace the new requirements and use them to help drive the business. The standard required a risk analysis that helped the business to start looking at areas where improvements could be made. In Summer of 2018, Ripley Machine achieved ISO Certification to the ISO 9001:2015 standard. This achievement wasn’t good enough for the management team. “Our management team felt that we were proud of the changes we had made and achieving certification to the 2015 standard but weren’t satisfied. Our recent changes really had made us question the ‘we’ve always done it this way’ type of things in our organization” states Reinwald.
Over the next year there were a lot of internal discussions on changes to the QMS and by the end of 2019, the company unveiled new quality objectives and a new quality policy to its team with more of a focus being placed on continuous improvement. The company emphasized this focus in early 2020 by investing in ProShop ERP. The new ERP allowed Ripley Machine to take its QMS to a much higher level. By the end of 2022, Ripley Machine had fully implemented ProShop ERP.
The company’s investment in the ERP allowed for all areas of the business and QMS to be managed in one place. Each piece of measuring equipment was added to the ERP. Each piece of measuring equipment then had its own page where we could ensure that all calibration schedules were met.
Each gage in our quality management system has its own page inside of our ERP. We are able to setup checks to ensure gage is calibrated in a timely manner. On the left side you will see information pertaining to this gage. As you can see, this gage is linked to similar gages as well as the part(s) this gage is used for.
A sample first article inspection in ProShop ERP.
In addition to housing all of the measuring equipment, ProShop ERP enabled Ripley Machine to take their quality to a whole new level. Each and every job that we produce at Ripley Machine is reviewed during contract review. The quality team adds a first article inspection to each operation for each part. Each first article inspection requires the operator and inspector to fill in a value for each dimension. These first article inspections also include detailed notes on how to check specific dimensions and they can even include pictures to help ensure that our team is checking the parts correctly. We are also able to establish in process checks to record certain dimensions at certain intervals. At the completion of a job, we are able to provide first article inspection results as well as full in process check results to our customer.
By the end of 2023, the Ripley Machine management team was very pleased with how far the Quality Management System had come but still wasn’t satisfied. Reinwald says, “Over the last few years, we have spent a lot of time learning from a lot of leaders in the industry. We are proud of how far our business has came but we are not a world class industry leader”. One of the key things holding Ripley Machine back from being a world class industry leader was a lack of a true quality department with high end and high accuracy measurement equipment.
At the end of 2023 and into 2024, Ripley Machine removed several old machines from its floorspace and built a quality lab. The new lab is equipped with a Mitutoyo High Accuracy Height Gage that is accurate to +/-1.1 µinch, a 3’ x 4’ Granite Plate, various High Accuracy Bore Gages and Micrometers, along with various other inspection equipment. The quality lab combined with ProShop ERP, will allow the company to more easily meet any inspection requirements that our customers may have. The company is also working to continually add to the quality department as it sees fit to best serve its current customers while considering potential new customers and markets.
We want to publicly thank Finish Line Gutters for their help in designing and building the quality room. We also want to thank the amazing team at Perry Mill Supply for their help in finding the right equipment for our company.
In a time where many machine shops are doing the bare minimum to get by and meet customers requirements, Ripley Machine is not accepting “good enough” and is striving to go above and beyond to meet their client’s requirements and we would welcome an opportunity to work with you! Contact us today to learn how we can help with your next machining project.
