CAPT employee captures international award for audit

CELINA - A Celina Aluminum Precision Technology employee received an international award for her work on a quality assurance audit.

Shirley Gross of Celina, manager of the quality department at CAPT, was chosen for the Benjiro Honda Memorial Award. This year marks the first time in its 30-year history that associates outside the Japan-based parent company were eligible for the award.

Gross was one of 11 recommended associates; six were from Japan and four were from China. She emphasized that preparing for the intense quality audit was a team effort.

"I received a plaque for the award, which I really enjoyed, but the real celebration is still coming up for me. This has been a team effort and the company is sponsoring a free meal for all the CAPT employees to celebrate and recognize that," Gross said.

Benjiro Honda - founder of CAPT's parent company, the Honda Foundry - created the annual award to honor associates who propose an idea or improvement that significantly contributes to productivity.

Gross, a 20-year CAPT employee, was nominated by company president Naoharu Watanabe for her work as team leader in preparing for the "Quality Assurance Verification." As suppliers of Honda Motor Company, Honda Foundry companies were required to complete the QAV-1 this year.

The six- to eight-month process involved auditors from Japan and the U.S. completing "very in-depth" evaluations of CAPT's quality and manufacturing systems, Gross explained.

"It was basically an audit to make sure we had robust systems in place to guarantee quality internally as well as to the customer and to make sure that we had documented systems to do it efficiently," Gross said.

CAPT Assistant Vice President Dennis Lee said it was a quality control measure.

"If you make a bad part, they wanted to make sure we would catch it, and if it does get to the end of the line, is there a guarantee we won't ship it, basically," he said.

The audit came with roughly 50 pages of requirements, Gross said.

"We already followed Honda Motor rules because they are currently our only customer. Then before they came in for the audit, they gave us a checklist of items they would be looking at," she said. "There was a lot of up-front work done. We had to read through all those, get with departments, make sure we were aligned and that we were doing it correctly."

Gross and her team interpreted the checklist and held weekly meetings to prepare. They continued to make adjustments as the process went on, gathering additional information as the audit team requested, she said.

"The manual tells us how to do things and the audit team came in to make sure that's the way we were doing it," Gross said. "We scored very well on that audit and so the end result is that we have a very robust quality manufacturing system that was recognized by Honda."

The award was given to Gross for preparing for the audit and to recognize the positive result.

CAPT is now the model for other companies who use the QAV-1.

"They used it as a benchmark for some of the other companies going through this same process that weren't as structured or organized," Gross said. "For the most part we were on the mark, though sometimes through translation we didn't exactly understand the questions."

Lee said CAPT is ahead of the game; its audit was finalized Thursday.

"Companies around the world have gone through this same audit. There was a point value set for all of them to achieve and we are the only ones to pass that so far. The other companies are still going through it," Lee said.

Gross said she was very excited when she learned she had won the award.

"I didn't know that they had actually put me in for it, so I had no idea," she said. "I told them it wasn't just me and that Dennis' (Lee) name should be on it, too."

The audit was stressful, Gross said, but the kind of stress she welcomes.

"I deal pretty well with stress. I might get a little testy but I have high expectations for myself and for the people around me," she said. "I work well under pressure."