Tag: industry

Precision Group of San Antonio is ISO 13485:2016 Certified

Precision Group of San Antonio today announced the company’s quality management system received its ISO 13485:2016 certification which will allow the plastics and tooling manufacturer to enter the medical device production market. The ISO 13485:2016 quality program specifies requirements for a quality management system where an organization needs to demonstrate its ability to provide medical devices and related services that consistently meet customer and applicable regulatory requirements.

“This certification was new for us and was a major step forward for our company because it opens up a new avenue of business for us. We have been working with San Antonio’s KCI-Medical over the last several years, but this quality certification will allow us to provide a wider array of services to them, and open some doors to the broader medical device market.”
Said Precision Group Quality Manager Anna Wulfe.

Wulfe explained that company went through a thorough three-day audit of its operations to secure the certification. They hired Perry Johnson Registrars, a world leader in quality assessments, to conduct their review. The analysis included a complete inspection of the procedures Precision Group developed for its business to ensure that all steps were being followed as described.

“THIS IS AN A TO Z INSPECTION. BUSINESSES WE WORK WITH WILL KNOW FOR CERTAIN THAT WE HAVE BEEN VETTED FOR DELIVERING THE HIGHEST QUALITY STANDARDS. THIS GIVES OUR CLIENTS A LEVEL OF CONFIDENCE WE THINK THEY DESERVE.”
Precision Group

“We were pleased to be able to work with a company with the international stature Perry Johnson has earned over the years. They looked at every aspect of our processes to include who our suppliers are, how we receive inventory, how we check against purchase orders to ensure we are accepting exactly what was ordered, how we label inventory and a host of other procedural steps like those. Then they examined our production processes and quality controls we implement there. This is an A to Z inspection so that businesses we work with will know for certain that we have been vetted for delivering the highest quality standards, which gives our clients a level of confidence we think they deserve.”
Wulfe Noted

By earning the ISO 13485:2016 certification, Precision Group will now need be open to unannounced inspections by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Wulfe said that those types of “without warning” inspections will be welcomed because it will be another level of quality assurance they can provide to current and future customers.

“At the end the certification process, the company being inspected gets a full report and a listing of major and minor findings. In other words, the audit team will explain where they found flaws in the system. We were pretty excited to learn that this audit team found no flaws in our procedures. We were told that this was the first time their team did not have any findings to report. Essentially, we were the first company to ever ace that particular inspection.”
Wulfe said

This quality assurance certification is valid for three years. However, the company will undergo annual inspections over that term to ensure compliance. At the end of the three years, another full examination must be performed in order for Precision Group to be re-certified for the ISO 13485:2016 approval. Requirements of ISO 13485:2016 are applicable to organizations regardless of their size or type, and can apply to medical devices or services supplied by the organization.

Precision Group to Exhibit at Meximold 2021

Precision Group is excited to announce that we will be attending the Meximold 2021 exhibition in Queretaro, Mexico in October 2021. With our new operations in Monterrey, Mexico already in full swing, we are hoping to spread the word about our world-class mold creation, mold repair, prototyping, and engineering design services.

You can find us at Stand 424 at the Queretaro Centro de Congresos in October 21-22, 2021. See you there!

Alamo Academies Internship Program Graduate!

SUCCESS STORY OF ALAMO ACADEMIES

Congratulations to Steven Valadez, Burbank High School and Alamo Academies student. Steven will complete his internship next week. Following the completion of the 8-week, 320 hour program. Then Steven will complete his senior year in high school and the Academy. Upon graduation, he’ll have 32 credits toward an Associate’s Degree. While at Precision Mold & Tool Group, Steven worked 320 hours in both the molding and injection sides of the business. Additionally, he is the first participant in the preappenticeship program established between Precision Mold & Tool Group and the Alamo Academies. If Steven chooses to, this program allows for a direct hire to the US Department of Labor apprenticeship program and sets him up for a life-long career. We wish Steven all the best with his senior year in school and look forward to him returning to Precision Mold & Tool Group following his graduation. Congratulations Steven!!

ENGINEERING AND SPECIALIZED CAM/CAD DESIGN

The Results of Education

Today we celebrated the outstanding achievements of six people in the company. Mike Pasley, Noe Beltran, Mike Wilson, Mohammad Mandehgari, and Ernesto Gonzalez completed the United States Department of Labor Tool and Die Maker Apprenticeship program. Each completed an academic course of instruction as well as 8,000 hours of on-the-job training. Congratulations to these five gentlemen for a marvelous accomplishment.

Additionally, Precision Mold & Tool Group is poised to be the first manufacturing academy partner with the Alamo Academies Advanced Technology and Manufacturing Academy to offer a pre-apprenticeship program to run in parallel with the Alamo Academies internship program. Our intern, Steven Valdez, provided an in-depth tour of facility operations to Terry Young, Alamo Academies Coordinator, and Joe Ybarra, ATMA Instructor.

Precision Mold & Tool Group is committed to ensuring our people are able to make use of the best educational opportunities possible. Again, congratulations to our graduates and to our intern!

Precision Group hosts SAMA Holiday Mixer

All are invited to the San Antonio Manufacturers Association Holiday Mixer and Plant Tour, hosted by Precision Group on December 6, from 5:00-7:00pm. Precision Group values the relationships we’ve built with other San Antonio manufacturers. We know the economic impact we have on our beloved city and state, and are excited to host a Holiday event to celebrate the season with each other.

Enjoy appetizers, beverages (beer, wine, soda and water), networking, and plant tours of Precision Group (located 315 North Park Rd, San Antonio, Texas 78216).

Tickets may be purchased through the SAMA website here.

Coming Together Across Borders

In the spirit of the holiday season, Precision Group is celebrating our unity as a company by coming together across international borders. Employees from our new Monterrey location joined us for comprehensive training sessions on our new equipment — including the Makino F5 vertical machining center — in preparation for the grand opening of the new shop in Mexico. We captured a few pictures during this exciting exchange of knowledge!

Precision Group Announces New Operations in Monterrey

Precision Group is excited to announce that we are developing a new 15,000 sq. ft. facility in Monterrey, Mexico to expand our tooling operations. This facility will be fully outfitted with the latest technology to support mold creation, mold repair, prototyping, and engineering design.

“We are thrilled to bring our expertise directly to the Monterrey market. For years, we have seen demand for our services grow in Mexico. Now we will be better equipped to meet that demand with high-tech solutions and decades of experience right in Mexico.”
said Maya Royberg, CEO & Owner of Precision Group.

Precision Group’s new Monterrey shop will open in early 2021, and will begin serving customer needs immediately after that. The Monterrey facility will operate under the name Prodmash (a Precision Group subsidiary) and will augment Precision Group’s existing operations in San Antonio and La Feria, TX, and Reynosa, Mexico.

In the meantime, as we look forward to the official opening, we would like to share some pictures of the construction in progress! Stay tuned for further updates, and if you are looking for tooling services in the Monterrey area or elsewhere, please fill out the contact form on our website.

Prodmash Group International
Carretera Mezquital – Santa Rosa 2745 Int F
Apodaca, Nuevo Leon, Mexico 66630
+52-81-3546-4500

Sales Manager: Frédéric Chargé

Strengthening America’s Manufacturing Labor Force

We’ve talked a lot about outsourcing and how we can choose to grow our economy once more by bringing crucial production back to our shores, but successfully rebooting our economy with the goal of achieving manufacturing independence will depend entirely on having a qualified and effective labor force as its backbone. That labor force has been rocked by two specific trends in the 20th and 21st centuries that now present a challenge to bolstering our production capabilities within America.

The first trend dates back to the 1930s, starting with the Great Depression. During and after this stock-market-initiated financial crisis — by some measures the most severe and prolonged economic depression in our country’s history — many people were understandably shaken. In particular, parents desperately seeking to push their children up the socioeconomic ladder to avoid the very real threat of financial instability and poverty saw college education as a one-way ticket to improve their prospects. These parents were operating under the assumption that having white-collar jobs would inevitably lead their children to better lives. This conscious rejection of “dirty” blue-collar work has created a lingering stigma that persists to this day, leading many to pass up good-paying manufacturing opportunities solely because they lack the “prestige” of white-collar work.

The second and more recent trend relates to the core issue of outsourcing. Because companies decided to save money on the bottom line by shipping manufacturing operations out of America, a number of important facets of our production economy were thrown away and will be difficult for many companies to recreate: training programs, generational expertise, and sense of devotion, commitment, or purpose that was once more common.

As an industry and as a nation — if we are serious about reclaiming manufacturing supremacy at home — we will need to make a conscious effort to address both trends. First, we must communicate to younger generations the reality that manufacturing is a thriving industry that will create well-paid jobs anyone should be proud to do. We must shift the conversation to strip away the “dirty job” stigma from the honest manufacturing work done by blue collar working professionals. After all, succeeding in manufacturing requires real technical qualifications like a practical knowledge of math, physics, computer science and other related STEM fields. This knowledge doesn’t necessarily have to be acquired via college education as post-Great Depression parents might have assumed, either. Going to college isn’t always suitable for every student’s goals and abilities and college often incurs crippling financial burden in the form of student loans. Through trade schools and on-the-job training people can obtain very well paid jobs that can guarantee a good and stable income without mortgaging their future.

Precision Group has always been fully committed to nurturing America’s manufacturing labor force of tomorrow by reaching out to youth and by providing our employees ample opportunity for education. We have been a leading voice for the Fill the Gap initiative, and we are continually expanding our training programs, technological resources and facilities to accommodate up-and-coming talent that will help America return to a position of dominance and independence within the manufacturing sphere. We have been doing our part to make that dream a reality for 35 years, and we believe that as time goes on, the importance of keeping highly qualified manufacturing expertise and operations in America will only become more evident. Until the rest of the industry catches up, we are happy to lead the charge towards self-sufficiency and continue deepening our pool of manufacturing talent.

The Evolution of Manufacturing — from Henry Ford to Pluto

The history of manufacturing in the United States is a fascinating story of evaluation and change in society, culture, and economics. As the United States grew larger and its economic ties with other countries grew stronger, manufacturing became more and more sophisticated and the processes became more refined and systematic. As the country’s economic prospects grew, our industries grew as well. Manufacturers needed to match the demands of Americans and their newfound prosperity. Around the world and especially in Europe, America held enormous potential for industry, since there was so much usable land.

Henry Ford was one of the earliest and most successful manufacturing innovators to cater to Americans’ needs. Ford’s implementation and refinement of the assembly line in the early 20th century led to the exponential growth of manufacturing capacity across all industries — not just automotive. Such innovations in manufacturing made America the world’s number one producer of goods, leading to a new heights of economic and political power. In the eyes of the world, it was undeniable that American power and American industry were inseparably tied together, with manufacturing at its core.

On the back of our manufacturing prowess, America reached a new peak in the 1960s and 1970s with great boundary-pushing and manufacturing-led programs like NASA’s Apollo program, which in just ten years took America from Earth to the moon and inspired a generation of young and awestruck Americans to become scientists and engineers. Only a country with the industrial capacity, resources, and sheer determination to reach this goal could have achieved it — and to this day, America remains the only nation to have successfully reached the moon (and six times at that). Without our legendary ability to manufacture crucial parts using the most advanced techniques of the day, reaching the moon would have been an impossible task.

Now, we are once again reaching new heights as innovative companies are trailblazing paths to space and other new fields once more. On May 30, 2020, SpaceX and NASA jointly and successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the ISS. That historic launch (the first launch of Astronauts from American soil in nearly a decade) is helping to usher in a new era of American ingenuity and progress in engineering and science, and serves as an inspiring example of what the manufacturing industry can accomplish in partnership with scientists and engineers from both public and private organizations.

For 35 years, Precision Group has operated an advanced manufacturing presence in the United States and worked with numerous high-profile companies, agencies and organizations to push the boundaries of the scientific and technological frontiers. We have been lucky to work with brilliant scientists and engineers on manufacturing projects for NASA such as New Horizons, the first space probe to visit Pluto and send pictures back to Earth. We are all inspired by the successes that America has achieved through its manufacturing might, and we appreciate the opportunity to be part of the vanguard that is leading the world to inspiring successes both on Earth and elsewhere in the universe.

Turning the Tide

Not too long ago, America proudly led the world in manufacturing. What the heck happened? Decades of outsourcing by short-sighted corporations has stripped America of our manufacturing independence, leaving us vulnerable in the era of COVID-19. Only now, faced with a broken system where we cannot obtain medical supplies to fight the virus, have these corporate decision-makers learned what many of us have known all along: that America must be ready and able to produce crucial products “in-house” within our borders at a moment’s notice.

America has been vulnerable for many years, relying on a false sense of security that a global crisis would not disrupt our international supply chains. If there is one silver lining of the still-unfolding pandemic, it is that our complacence has been shattered, and our country is responding with exactly the hard work and perseverance needed to emerge stronger on the other side. Working together, people and private industry in this country have already started to turn the tide, building 100,000 ventilators in 100 days, compared to 40,000 in the eight years prior to the pandemic.

We are listening to your concerns, and we know you agree: we must bring American manufacturing back home again and restore our industrial independence. For many corporations, this transition will be difficult — requiring a different mindset, a more focused vision, hard work, and determination. At Precision Group, we’ve already spent 35 years building a foundation for navigating this new world. We are a successful, fully-American manufacturing operation employing skilled American workers, and we’ve always believed that is the best way to operate.

Now, because we have kept our operations in America, and developed a strong technological core, we are ready and able to ramp up production of medical supplies like oxygen mask components, and lead the charge to make America competitive in manufacturing once more.

Here are some of the medical devices and components we are proud to manufacture in America: