Scalable Policy Management Helps Carnegie Robotics Earn ISO 9001:2008 Certification

About this Case study

As Carnegie Robotics scaled from start-up to a more mature organization, management realized they needed a tool that would grow with them and remain flexible as they added more employees and increased the number of policies and procedures.

1. Industry:

   Manufacturing

2. Number of employees:

   65

3. Before:

   Growing number of policies managed through email and spreadsheets.

4. After:

   Automating policy management leads to market-differentiating certification.

Read the Case study

Challenge: Growth Drives Need for Robust Policy Management System

When Carnegie Robotics was founded in 2010, it focused on research and development and devoted a small portion of the company’s resources to manufacturing. But with a rapidly growing manufacturing business and contracts with the government, relying on email and spreadsheets to manage their ever-growing collection of policies and assembly instructions was no longer feasible.

As the company scaled from start up to a more mature organization, management realized they needed a tool that would grow with them and remain flexible as they added more employees and increased the number of policies and procedures.

Solution: PolicyTech® Delivers Scalable Solution

Carnegie Robotics turned to PolicyTech to help them effectively manage their growing number of policies and procedures. “Some of our government contracts require that we have certain policies in place, and we use PolicyTech to confirm that people have read those policies,” said Clayton Mathis, Manager of Corporate Services.

Those same government contracts also drove the adoption of the software for a unique purpose – storing assembly instructions. “When you’re building products for the government, configuration management becomes very important. We’ve used PolicyTech to control versions of our assembly instructions to ensure that we distribute new versions to assemblers quickly and uniformly,” described Mathis.

In addition to putting everybody on the same page, PolicyTech helps Mathis and the company identify where there are issues that need to be addressed. As a small company, there aren’t always resources available to ensure that each individual employee reads and follows company policies. PolicyTech allows Carnegie Robotics to automate the process, identify failure points, and ultimately correct them in a timely fashion.

Results: Better Policy Management Leads to Important Certification

PolicyTech’s scalability has easily accommodated the company’s growth and need to mature its business processes. “When you’re a startup with five people, it’s very easy to make sure that everybody is doing what they need to be doing because they can all see each other all the time. When we moved into a 42,000 square foot facility and doubled in size in two years that becomes more challenging. PolicyTech allows us to distribute these policies much the same way that you would see in a much larger organization,” said Mathis.

Robust policy management also helped Carnegie Robotics earn an important distinction – ISO 9001:2008 certification. The certification is a worldwide Quality Management System standard that demonstrates that the company executes business functions according to the procedures that they have set forth. Certification requires that Carnegie Robotics can document what its procedures are and that those procedures are being followed. PolicyTech gives the company the ability to verify that both of those things are happening on a regular basis.

The value of earning ISO 9001:2008 certification has been “immeasurable” according to Mathis. Some of the company’s contracts require a Quality Management System, and ISO 9001:2008 is the gold standard for manufacturing. “There are not really that many, maybe a handful of, companies our size in manufacturing that have this level of certification and an even smaller number in the robotics field. It absolutely is a market differentiator.”

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About Carnegie Robotics

Carnegie Robotics, LLC (CRL), is an ISO 9001:2008 certified supplier of reliable and advanced robotics sensors and platforms for defense, agriculture, mining and commercial applications. CRL has grown steadily since its founding in 2010 by fulfilling the increasing demand for reliable and environmentally robust components that provide perception and intelligence for autonomous systems. In addition, CRL partners with major equipment suppliers to deliver disruptive, automated systems to traditional markets.