Smartek Vision has laid the foundation for precision quality assurance and a continuous improvement process by introducing a consistent quality management system and achieving ISO 9001 certification. As far as its customers are concerned, this means that the company offers a very reliable, high-quality service because of its transparent operational processes and low error rate, which in turn lead to cost reductions and increased customer satisfaction.

This Croatian company, which has its headquarters in Cakovec, received ISO 9001:2008 certification for the development, manufacture and sales of electronic equipment on May 1st. SGS, world leaders in certification, supported and verified the audit process. As an international manufacturer of cameras and flash controllers for industrial imaging, Smartek has taken an important step with regard to quality management. The ISO 9001 standard is the most widely-applied and most important standard for quality management (QM) around the world. For exporting companies in particular, ISO 9001 certification is important. It demonstrates to customers that they have professional process structures and workflows which satisfy consistent test criteria and form the basis for reliable business relationships. Unusually, Smartek Vision has had its development process, which includes mechanical, hardware and software development as well as prototyping, certified to ISO 9001. Normally only the production and sales processes are audited.

Damir Dolar, Managing Director of Smartek Vision, explains the importance of this certification: "ISO 9001 is an internationally recognised standard. Certification demonstrates to our customers, many of which are international organisations, that our processes are genuinely professional throughout the value chain. Our comprehensive quality manual will provide a basis for further improvement and compliance with future standards. For us, ISO 9001 certification is a good starting point for our next quality management project, which involves obtaining ISO 13485 certification for medical products in our role as a partner to the medical technology industry."