Case Study
Conack – QEHS Certification
Conack
Conack is one of Ireland’s leading construction firms, delivering recognisable and essential projects that are helping shape our built environment. They are a dynamic and ambitious company, setting new standards as they deliver cutting-edge building and infrastructure solutions across Ireland.
Over the last decade, Conack has grown significantly and is now ranked well within the 50 Contractors in the country. As a testament to their commitment to growth and excellence, Conack has successfully become certified to ISO 9001 (Quality Management), ISO 14001 (Environmental Management) and ISO 45001 (Occupational Health and Safety Management) across their Integrated Management System with Certification Europe. These certifications not only reinforce their dedication to the highest industry standards, but also position them as an industry leader in quality, environmental responsibility and workplace safety.
Opportunity
Conack’s main driving-force for gaining ISO Certification was due to client requirements. The competitive construction industry is centred around tendering for projects and over the last 8-10 years the pre-qualification questionnaires for the tender process focused on quality and compliance. Conack realised that ISO 9001 certification for their Quality Management System would be an important certificate to gain to support their tender process, giving assurance to their clients that they are fully compliant to an international standard.
After achieving ISO 9001 in 2015, Conack continued to expand in operation, size and scale and tender for further opportunities where clients required additional ISO certifications, namely ISO 14001 (Environmental) and ISO 45001 (Health & Safety). Coupled with the client need, Conack also felt that certification to these additional standards would support their workforce across the multiple locations where they operate by standardising processes and procedures. Soon after that Conack went on to achieved ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 certification and it was the Senior Management expectation that, once certification to all three standards was achieved, these systems would be integrated, to streamline processes and procedures further across the business.
Approach
Conack’s journey to ISO certification was a collaborative effort from the very beginning. Having previously used excel for documentation control, the team within the organisation brought in a consultant to support the creation and implementation of a quality management system (QMS) to align with ISO 9001. Once satisfied their QMS was ready, Conack went out to tender in 2015 to search for a suitable Certification Body that met their criteria.
Conack selected Certification Europe as their Certification Body from the tender process and proceeded with an ambitious target of becoming certified to ISO 9001 before the end of that year. This was achieved through working with Certification Europe’s Certification Services Team in relation to assigning the correct Assessor, scheduling dates which suited both Conack and the Assessor and working together.
Over the following months and years, Conack worked with the same Assessor from Certification Europe, who has built a great relationship with the team within the business and got to know the details of how their management system operated – A real benefit of having the same Assessor work with a company through their certification journey. In 2019, Conack worked with Martin to become certified to two additional standards – ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 which resulted in them achieving one Integrated Management System, making it a seamless and straightforward process for future Surveillance Assessments in the years to come.
Outcome
After gaining certification across the three standards for their Integrated Management System, Conack saw a number of benefits across the business. From making the tender and bidding process simpler and straightforward to improving the overall efficiency of internal processes and procedures and document control, Conack are reaping the rewards of their now fully established management system.
Although the beginning of the process was time consuming their team have seen the numerous benefits of following the ISO structure for their management systems and the need for central document control across their growing business. They have found their processes and SOPs have been tidied up at all levels throughout the business.
Now that there is a baseline set for their management system, the team at Conack have continuous improvement on their mind. With regular six-monthly assessments by Certification Europe, Conack ensure the focus never drops from maintaining and improving their document control, streamlining processes further and consolidating SOPs for working smarter.
As well as internal benefits, the benefits also transpired with clients and when external stakeholders engage with Conack. In relation to Health & Safety specifically, Conack have noticed that when stakeholders, such as their clients or the HSA visit their sites they are provided with confidence and assurance that there is a system in place, the processes are assessed and verified and that all information for sites and personnel on site is tracked within the overall certified management system, ensuring a safe workplace for all.
With their multiple certifications implemented and certified, Conack’s clients express great trust in the organisation and it has greatly impacted their overall reputation across their client base.
We’ve been working with Certification Europe for over 8 years now and have had an excellent experience from the very beginning.
Having been afforded the opportunity to build and retain a relationship with the same assessor with Certification Europe over the years it has made the transition from a QMS to an IMS seamless.
The Certification Europe team work away in the background to ensure our assessments are scheduled well in advance, our reports are sent through very quickly and that any questions we have are answered efficiently and with plenty of detail.
Paula Shinners
Director of Communications, Conack
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