SQEP is Cat's process for assessing and recognising suppliers' quality performance, and combines industry-recognised systems (ISO/TS16949:2002) with demonstrated results. This latest award builds on a strong history of success for the company's Skinningrove, north-east England site, which has received Cat's Silver Award for the last three years.
This is the first time any European Tata Steel facility has achieved Gold: to gain it the company had to deliver a number of successful collaborative initiatives and Six Sigma Projects (projects which support the client on strategies, techniques and tools to improve their processes) while maintaining high levels of service and quality. These projects include product-range extensions, cost reduction activities, and innovative finance arrangements.
The award assesses numerous internal processes throughout the whole supply chain including steelmaking in Scunthorpe, eastern England; the Special Profiles mill in Skinningrove, and the Tata Steel team in the USA. Tata Steel has achieved over 97% delivery performance throughout the year on over 200,000 steel bars, which have been shipped to locations around the globe, including America, Asia, Canada, Brazil and the UK.
Peter Gate, global account manager at Tata Steel said: "The SQEP process is a fantastic benchmark process for measuring the success of our supplier customer relations. Through the diligent and precise work of our teams, we have reduced our annual quality rejects by more than half, and are delighted to receive this award in recognition of the hard work of everybody involved."
