Cooper Tire & Rubber Co.'s Corporación de Occidente joint venture manufacturing facility in Guadalajara, Mexico, has earned 9001:2008 quality certification.
The passenger, light truck and truck tire plant joins six other Cooper facilities that previously attained the designation.
"For Corporación de Occidente, this is another step in our transformation from a startup plant to a competitive, capable manufacturing facility," says plant General Manager Jeff Schumaker. "For Cooper, this completes a project we started several years ago in which all tire manufacturing facilities have achieved ISO 9001 quality certification."
“Certification serves as a third-party confirmation of our ongoing commitment to quality and continuous improvement,” adds Cooper Chairman and CEO Roy Armes.
According to the Modern Tire Dealer 2011 Facts Issue, the Corporación de Occidente SA de CV plant has the capacity to produce 20,000 tires a day, broken out as follows:
Passenger: 10,000
Light truck: 7,200
Medium truck: 2,800
ISO 9000 is an internationally recognized group of quality standards set forth by the International Organization for Standardization, a body that sets standards in many businesses and technologies. Certification requires that companies set in place procedures for monitoring and continually improving key business processes and products.
Cooper's other ISO 9001-certified manufacturing facilities are in Findlay, Ohio (two, including the Tall Timbers Mold Operations facility); Melksham, England; Texarkana, Ark.; Tupelo, Miss; and Kunshan, People's Republic of China (the Cooper Kenda Tire joint venture manufacturing facility).
Five Cooper facilities have earned ISO 14001 environmental management system certification: the Findlay tire manufacturing and Tall Timbers Mold Operations facilities; and the tire manufacturing facilities in Texarkana, Ark., Tupelo, Miss., and Rongchen City, PRC (the Cooper Chengshan Tire joint venture).
