Laugfs industrial tyres get ISO 9001:2008 certification

By David Ebert

Laugfs Corporation (rubber) was awarded the ISO 9001:2008 quality certification by SGS Lanka Ltd. on Friday at a ceremony held at the SGS head office in Colombo. The certification is aimed at updating an organisation’s overall quality management system which would also involve a complete process for documenting, implementing, maintaining and improving a company’s processes in order to achieve a standard of manufacturing quality that is globally recognised and respected.

The company which was incorporated in 2005 with an initial investment of over Rs. 1 billion currently stands as the largest local manufacturer of high quality pneumatic tyres, with exports to the United States, Europe and Asia, and are used by numerous original heavy equipment manufacturers.

Speaking at the ceremony, SGS Lanka Business Manager – Systems and Services Certification B.A. Sumanasiri commended the company and its team for its efforts in achieving the required compliance objectives in a short time period. Giving an introduction on the certification and what it entails, Sumanasiri added that: “Quality is a journey without an end because the quality requirement of today’s customer is constantly changing with time because of the various technological advances and competitive offerings available in the market.”

Sumanasiri went on to point out that the certification alone would not be sufficient and pointed out the systems of checks and balances required to successfully maintain the processes needed to effectively manage its production quality.

“Now that you, the Laugfs Corporation Rubber has started on this journey towards quality management using ISO 9001:2008 which sets out a series of guidelines for an organisation to develop a quality management system and this must be translated into a series of workable objectives for which the people should be trained and oriented on. There needs to be an internal audit program in place and a management review process must also be initiated to maintain and track its progress.”

Laugfs Holdings Chairman W.K.H. Wegapitiya spoke at length on the company’s objective behind achieving the certification attributing the company’s success so far to its focus on maintaining a stringent quality policy. “As a fully Sri Lankan company, we had a quality vision at the time of incorporation in 1995 as tiny home grown enterprise. We have had various processes throughout this journey of almost seventeen years and it has brought us to where we are today as one of the country’s corporate giants because of this quality vision that we have maintained.”

Wegapitiya also elaborated on the group’s reason for moving into the industrial tyre market against all odds and time tested management practices that warn of the dangers of over-diversification. “There were reason why we ventured into the manufacturing of industrial tyres and there were various question asked at various forums that Laugfs is unwontedly diversifying into areas and many management theories advise a company to not attempt to be a jack-of-all-trades.

So a lot of people ask us why we moved from energy and supermarkets to the manufacturing of rubber products but there are very valuable reasons. As a Sri Lankan company working within a developing nation with a high trade deficit also since we are in a highly volatile energy business where we import a lot of products we wanted to be in an export related business that earns foreign exchange, and with the country’s competitive advantage of being one of the world’s foremost suppliers of high quality natural rubber that other rubber manufacturing countries do not have. We have the world’s best natural rubber so we must capitalise on this competitive advantage that our country has. This is the reason that we decided on rubber products.”

Wegapitiya also expressed confidence in his team’s ability to implement and maintain the required procedures in the future and commended their efforts in achieving the company’s quality objectives for which he stated the certification alone was proof enough of their dedication and effectiveness.

Pic by Sameera Wijesinghe