Mission Statement

"To consistently meet or exceed the quality requirements of our customers." In today's competitive marketplace, companies must be efficient to survive. The quality bar is constantly being raised and forces us to reconsider how we do business on a daily basis. This constant re-engineering of our organization requires a thorough understanding of our customers' needs. Our Quality Team's responsibility is to ensure the end products we ship meet the customers' needs amidst our ever-changing industry. With Zero Defects as our goal, the Quality Department drives the culture of our company. Each discipline within our Quality department has a clear focus on achieving this result. Several of the Quality philosophies and methods responsible for our success have been included on this page.

APQP

The first area of focus in obtaining "ZERO DEFECTS" is, "Advanced Product Quality Planning". We are committed to the philosophy that part quality will only be as good as the planning and forethought that went into developing it. Time spent fixing quality problems that should have been addressed during part development is pure waste and impedes our ability to remain competitive.

Successful quality planning in the automotive industry requires a combination of competent resources, disciplined systems and exceptional organizational skills. Our hand picked Engineering team has experience in Japanese, European and North American production environments. Our strict adherence to checklists, open issues lists, follow-up documentation and standardized filing systems are key to our success. An example of this is our colour coded database/ binder system which puts the details of an entire program at our fingertips from supplier PPAP's to Customer SQAM's to our own APQP activities. This is just one of the simple and effective solutions we utilize to manage the myriads of information in our industry.

TS16949

Our quality system is accredited to one of the most demanding quality certifications in our industry. Starting with our QS9000 in September 1997, we have refined our systems to the point where we achieved our TS16949 accreditation in October of 2005. Click on the picture below to view our TS16949 certificate.

Quality Control

Quality at Lakeside is owned by everyone. Our jobs depend on it. Living the belief that, "Defects will not be tolerated", it is common to see dozens of opportunities for product and process improvements published in our daily newsletter. These comments come predominantly from our Production Associates and stand as a daily reminder that waste will not be tolerated. Our quality performance is directly related to how efficiently and effectively these opportunities get resolved from Advanced Quality Planning through to Warranty and Service). Our approach is simple: keep reporting channels short, serve your internal customer as you would your external customer and accept no less than 100% performance from any member of our team. Utilization of statistical controls, vision systems, advanced automation, error proofing, robotics and other forms of technology helps us achieve Zero Defects. We recognize, however, that these systems will never replace the need for a trained and dedicated workforce. This is where the Lakeside advantage lies. We have a closed feedback loop between our training programs and our day to day operations. We can literally mold a new hire into a professional molder with our internal training programs (which have been benchmarked by a number of our customers).

You, the Customer

As liaison to our customers we are committed to being responsive and effective. Our Quality Department is structured into Specialist roles. This allows us to process engineering changes and PPAP's with exceptional speed. Typical PPAP requirements such as metrology, lab work, control documentation, sub-supplier approval, capability studies, gauge R&R and final PPAP submission compilation are performed simultaneously by all members of our Quality department.

When on-site support is required our Quality department is ready to serve. We have competent technical field support to contain, manage and resolve all matters. We utilize cross-functional problem solving teams to identify true root causes and drive them back through the organization to FMEA and APQP levels. We will be honest about our mistakes and we expect the same from our business partners. We communicate our performance on a daily basis to the entire organization via our daily Q.C. memo