The IEM Commitment to Quality

On January 2, 2008, IEM's Quality Management System was Certified to the ISO 9001:2000 International Standard (Certificate No. 08.002.1). Developed by the International Organization of Standardization (ISO), ISO 9001:2000 is a globally-recognized standard that emphasizes the incorporation of quality management principles that drive continuous business improvements, resulting in total customer satisfaction.  IEM's Quality Management System was audited and certified by Smithers Quality Assessments Inc., a leading independent and accredited registrar, who found that our Nuclear Services Division, our Consulting Division, our instrumentation program and our corporate operations are all designed to ensure compliance with customer, regulatory and legal requirements.

The ISO 9001:2000 Process at IEM
ISO 9001:2000, the quality standard accepted by the majority of the world, speaks to all quality-related activities within IEM and helps ensure our clients' needs are met. In spite of the fact that IEM's mission since the date of its inception in 1994 as been on customer satisfaction, we sought Certification to the ISO 9001:2000 Standard in 2007 in order to offer third-party verification of our capabilities and to gain a competitive edge over companies like us that make similar claims.  To the best of our knowledge, IEM is the only ISO 9001:2000-compliant radiation-related consulting and services firm in the United States.

Benefits of IEM's Certification to our Clients
IEM's well-designed and fully-implemented Quality Management System, which has been confirmed by independent review to meet both the letter and the spirit of the ISO 9001:2000 Standard, provides our clients with a number of important benefits, including but not limited to the following:

• The use of firms that are Certified to the ISO 9001:2000 Standard distinguishes our clients in the marketplace and demonstrates their attention and commitment to quality in their own operations.
• Our clients have consistent, repeatable processes and a common system regardless of which IEM office , employee or project team is working for them.
• Our clients have fewer problems with failure in service or product /deliverable quality than they would with our competition.
• Our personnel know what to do and how our clients want it done.
• IEM's progress on projects is predictable, reliable and demonstrable.
• Our clients will have better management control and reporting because of their association with us, which means they will always know how their business is doing in the areas of radiation and radioactivity.

Benefits of Certification to IEM
The outcome of achieving Certification to the ISO 9001:2000 Standard goes beyond IEM's well-defined and documented procedures that are in place to improve the consistency of our output, products and deliverables. Other benefits to IEM include:

• Quality in all of our operations is constantly measured.
• Procedures ensure corrective action is taken whenever a non-conformance occurs.
• Non-conformance with predetermined requirements is caught earlier and is corrected at a lower cost to IEM. (Our clients are never held accountable for the cost of our own corrective actions.)
• Defining our procedures helps us quickly identify practices that are obsolete or inefficient.
• Written and reviewed procedures are easier for new employees to follow and they serve as an excellent training tool.

At IEM, quality is not just a goal that we work towards.  It is a process that is built into our everyday operations which permits us to guarantee that our clients will always receive predictably high quality products and services.  They will never spend money or waste time on the same old performance-related issues (i.e., cost, schedule or deliverable deficiencies) they experienced in former relationships with other radiological service providers.  Those issues disappeared when they became valued IEM clients because we know how to identify them, prevent them, and fix them faster.  Achieving Certification to the ISO 9001:2000 Standard offers our clients third-party verification of this claim and further demonstration of IEM's long-standing commitment to quality.

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