We are very excited to announce that Hirsh Precision is officially AS9100D certified and registered with ITAR, better equipping us to become a premier manufacturer for aerospace companies across the country.
It is an exciting time for our team to increase our work in the aerospace industry. Currently, Colorado is the second-largest aerospace economy in the United States. As of 2020, over 1,000 companies and more than 33,000 employees made up Colorado’s aerospace industry alone, with companies like Ursa Major, Lockheed Martin, Ball Aerospace, and countless others leading the way.
With more growth and development on the horizon for our local aerospace industry, it was critical to our team that we position ourselves in the best way possible to support current and future work with our aerospace partners. Although we have supported the aerospace industry in the past, and this work did not require ITAR registration or AS9100D certification, we did not want a lack of compliance to be a barrier to any future work that we could do for the aerospace industry.
Although acquiring our AS9100D certification and ITAR registration is the most recent, significant step we have taken to level up our quality, Hirsh Precision has a long history of improving our level of quality to meet in anticipation of our customers’ needs.
Our History of Raising the Bar on Quality
Since our founding in 1979, Hirsh Precision has taken intentional, purposeful steps that raise the standard of our quality.
One of the earliest ways we improved our quality was by investing in machining technology. Two years after Steve Hirsh founded the company, he bought our first CNC machine; six months later, he bought a second one. We also invested in auto-loading CNCs early on and developed our own proprietary manufacturing software that works seamlessly with our ERP to closely track parts as they move across our facility.
The transition to working with CNC machines gave us a whole new level of control over our quality.
-- Steve Hirsh, Founder & Director of Engineering.
Creating an Agile, Adaptable Quality Management System
As our capabilities evolved over the years and we moved into the medical device technology and aerospace industries, it was essential that we focus on aligning our processes, systems, and methods of documentation with internationally recognized quality standards.
For example, in 2017 we earned our ISO 9001:2015 certification, and in 2020 we completed our ISO 13485:2016 certification. Additionally, prior to earning our AS9100D certification and registering with ITAR, our team completely redesigned our quality management system – the Hirsh Production System (HPS).
We developed the HPS to align all our systems, methods, industry knowledge, and processes with international quality standards, as well as allowing our team to be agile, grow into new industries and technologies, and adapt to the needs of our customers without compromising security, quality, or efficiency.
In its current form, our Quality Management System allows our team to maintain the following quality objectives:
- On-time Delivery
- Meeting customer requirements
- Meeting all applicable regulatory requirements
- Maintaining and improving the effectiveness of the Hirsh Production System
Meeting the stringent requirements that accompany ISO 13485, AS9100D, and ITAR show the strength, maturity, and reliability of our quality systems, and improves our ability to help our customers succeed.
Amanda White
