A quality management system has been implemented and used in Ferona, a.s. since 2003 according to the requirements of the ISO 9001 standards (now according to ČSN EN ISO 9001:2008 standards).

The Certificate issued by the TÜV CERT Company is valid until July 2012.

An audit is carried out every year, the aim of which is to investigate whether the Ferona quality management system is sufficiently effective and operative.

The QMS has been determined for the following areas in Ferona at present:

"Purchase, storage, treatment, sale and transport of metallurgical materials, secondary products, non-ferrous metals and relates range of hardware goods in the wholesale."

At the Steel Service Center (which is carried out in Division IV., Steel Service Center, in Hradec Králové), the QMS system is applied to the "longitudinal and transversal slitting of steel coils and the testing of mechanical properties and chemical composition of metal materials".

Since 2007 the Ferona Steel Service Center has also implemented a certified quality management system according to ISO/TS 16949 standards (now according to ISO/TS 16949:2009) for the production of bands and sheets for the automotive industry using longitudinal and transversal slitting of steel coils.

Retail outlets have not as yet been included in the QMS. The following elements are not applied in the QMS: 7.3 of the standard for “design and development” (new products and services are not systematically developed) and 7.5.2 (no processes are implemented for which the process output cannot be checked through subsequent monitoring or measurement).

There is also quite a history behind the establishment of the QMS at Ferona. At the beginning, this concerned autonomous systems, established gradually within individual organisational units, at the branches operating at that time (1993 in Olomouc, 1995 in Chomutov and 1998 at another four branches – Hradec Králové, Pilsen, Brno and Ostrava).

In 2000 this process came to a head with the establishment and certification of a uniform QMS for the whole company according to ČSN EN ISO 9002:1994 standards.

 The QMS is described in detail in the Quality Manual, on process and metric cards, in documented procedure (Directions and Instruction) and in other regulated documentation. Ferona has declared a Quality policy in order to achieve its strategic aims and the Quality aims and the measures connected with them are regularly processed and evaluated in order to fulfil these.

Seven employees from the quality management department are currently working together to ensure a functioning QMS and its development. On the level of company management, a representative has been nominated for quality (the Quality Manager); quality management officials have been nominated in terms of individual divisions who have the same competences as the agent in terms of their division.

A summary of all activities directly implementing the subject of activity of Ferona and leading to customer satisfaction is summarised in the macro process - “Commodities trading“. This macro process is divided into six implementation processes for a more precise definition of responsibilities and in order to increase effectiveness. These processes monitor the flow of goods and information from customer request to the hand-over of the end product (goods and services) to the customers.

The Customer Quality Manual is intended to familiarise the customers with the manner in which their requirements and expectations are being fulfilled.

Ing. Zdeněk Baumruk

Quality Manager
Phone: +420 274 074 356
Fax:       +420 272 704 122
E-mail: baumruk@praha.ferona.cz