Cove Shoe Prepares for
ISO 9000 Registration

Profile:  Cove Shoe Company manufactures men's military, work and casual safety boots and shoes.  They compete in a market that is 90% offshore production.

Situation: Cove Shoe Co. needed ISO 9001 certification to retain a large customer and open up new product markets.  They had an informal, undocumented quality system in place when IMC staff first met with them.

Solution: The IMC executed several ISO 9000 Customized Consulting Service projects to help Cove Shoe document and implement an ISO 9001 compliant Quality System.  The first was an on-site presentation and discussion of the ISO standards and their requirements, benefits, associated costs and process of implementation. The next step was a gap analysis to establish what was required to bring their existing system up to ISO 9001 certification levels. During the next year, the IMC provided ongoing consulting services to prepare the quality system and documentation to meet the requirements of the ISO Standard. This included training internal auditors to prepare for internal audits of their quality system and help in finding an RAB accredited registrar to perform their registration audit.  The last project was a two-day pre-assessment to compare the documented quality system to the ISO 9000 requirements with a written report identifying any non-conformances.

Results:  Since the completion of the projects, Cove Shoe had a pre-assessment performed by their registrar with very positive results and is scheduled for their registration audit in September 2001.

UPDATE!  Cove Shoe passed their registration audit.