At the end of 2018, after years of growth in our organization and the rise of our subsidiaries in China and the United States, we collectively asked ourselves the following questions: “How can we better serve our customers?”, “How do we make them take full advantage of the power of our organization?”, “How can we improve their satisfaction with choosing TIAMA as a provider of monitoring and control solutions?” and, let’s be honest, “how do we get them to be partners rather than customers?”

It was then clear for us, that the first step in achieving these objectives was to improve our quality management system and have it certified.

On March 25, 2019, our CEO, Max HODEAU, officially launched this company project for TIAMA ISO 9001 certification.

ISO 9001 specifies the requirements for the Quality Management System to demonstrate our ability to consistently deliver a product or service that meets the requirements of customers, both legal and regulatory. But more importantly for us, the main purpose of this certification is to increase customer satisfaction through the effective application of the system in place.

All the teams organized themselves to build the Tiama Quality Management System. This has allowed us to question our processes and our practices: Is this the best way to carry out this activity? How can we be more effective? What can we simplify? We have also worked on our risks and opportunities, to take appropriate actions and to increase our performance.

Several working groups have been set up to redefine certain activities and work on areas of improvement. Collaborative tools have been deployed to support our Quality Management System, such as Teams, which allows co-editing on our working versions, and SharePoint, which allows for centralized documentation and accessibility for all.

It was thanks to this general momentum that the Tiama Quality Management System was developed in record time. It was then audited internally and then externally to test it, perfect it and finally validate it.

This team work and its enthusiasm were rewarded in February 2020 by obtaining ISO 9001 certification following the AFNOR audit.

We are very pleased with this result, which is a great reward for all the work done by all Tiama employees, but we keep in mind that certification is only the first step towards continuous improvement and satisfaction for all our customers.

We can therefore say that the adventure is just beginning…

Beyond the scope of Inspection

For decades, the glass industry has been conservative and risk-averse, and relied on traditional methodologies due to the complex physical and chemical processes involved in crafting a diversity of glass containers. Glass manufacturing companies are now investing heavily into big data analytics to overcome these complexities, and boost product quality. But data analytics is not enough. These plants need to constantly upgrade their equipment for improved production efficiency at reduced ownership costs. However, it is quite cumbersome to manage the existing equipment and their spare parts and purchase new equipment, while maintaining flexibility and versatility throughout the glass manufacturing process. Rising up to this challenge is Tiama—a global data and quality control provider.

Tiama offers a turnkey equipment as a service (EaaS) solution to empower glass companies with the best-fit machines, and unparalleled inspection and quality control. “This turnkey solution combines manufacturing equipment with service-level agreements, and big data to help clients make informed decisions pertaining to the glass manufacturing process in real-time,” states Max Hodeau, CEO of Tiama. With a significant global presence and substantial revenue, Tiama leads the charge to spark innovation and competency in maximizing glass production process efficiency. The company goes the extra mile to tackle the perturbing capital expenditures (CapEx) cost swings from recurring activities such as machine upgrades and refurbishment via subscription-based business model.

As these recurring activities demand high-fidelity data analytics across the plant, Tiama appends machine vision, what it calls “the heart of the process,” to the glass manufacturing framework. This technology coupled with an ‘auto-set’ feature of EaaS enables clients to configure their equipment per the type of glass container process they wish to control. From defining shape and colour to packaging and rejecting defects, the company leverages machine vision to cover it all. Tiama additionally helps the clients realise the benefits of investing in machine learning (ML), and helps them set up new equipment at the push of a button. That being said, a plant’s performance is not determined by just the capabilities of the machine, but also the skills of the machine operators. Tiama bridges this skill-gap with its proficient resident engineers.

This is an extract of an article published in the magazine “Manufacturing Technology Insights”. To read the full article click here.