What ISO 9001:2008, UL, FM and Other Certifications Mean

We take pride in quality. Our instrumentals for monitoring, control, and data acquisition are held to the highest standards and regulations to assure customers that they’re buying the best. When it comes to manufacturing, there are four main certifications/standards that tell the world of your dedication to quality: ISO 9001:2008, FM, UL, and IEEE 232/344. We are proud to have achieved every one of these certifications and standards and wanted to break down why are they so special and what does it take to attain them.

ISO 9001:2008

The ISO 9001-2008 certification covers your company’s quality management system. The International Organization for Standardization’s website states that this includes measuring your customer focus, leadership, involvement of people, process approach, decision making, and supplier relationships. What separates ISO 9001:2008 from other certifications is the rigorous and continuous auditing system. Even if you can pass all the initial tests laid out by the ISO, you must keep your quality management system running a peak performance at all times or risk losing your certification.

FM Approvals

FM Approvals are the product certification wing of the famed commercial and industrial property insurers FM Global. These third-party certifications cover products that have a direct bearing on the safety of a company’s property, such as fire protection equipment, gas detection, and electrical equipment monitoring. Because we manufacture a wide variety of monitoring instruments, this certification is critical to our success.

UL

If you have ever checked the label on a home appliance, odds are you have seen a UL certification label.  Of course, the UL 508 certification we have at Devar is more complex and specific to industrial control equipment.  The one thing both have in common is that they are globally accepted, extensive, and difficult to achieve and maintain.

IEEE-232 and 344

Finally, we have the most specific of our standards, IEEE C37.232 and 344. The IEEE Standards Association is made up of a number of different governing bodies that creates standards to help maintain a high-level of quality in various high-tech equipment. In this case, the IEEE 232 standards deal with equipment (digital fault recorders and power quality monitors) that produce TSD files, while the IEEE 344  standards cover equipment that is seismically qualified for use in nuclear power generating stations.

In the end, while all of these certifications and standards are unique, they all have one thing in common: Each of them is a way of proving Devar’s dedication to consistently excellent products and high-quality customer service.  As you can see, we take the extra step for our quality assurance program, so head over to our website to see how our products can help your business.

Why American Made Manufacturing Is Essential

“Made in the USA” is commonly seen stamped on boxes and products to display pride in the item’s origin. Fresh off of this month’s Manufacturing Day, which celebrated American industry, we’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be “Made in the USA.” While U.S. manufacturing’s “status” seems to change with every Google search, we believe there are more positive efforts pushing the industry forward more than ever before, which is why we’re looking forward to American Made Matters day next month.

On Nov. 19, American Made Matters will work toward “educating consumers on the importance of buying American-made products,” according to a press release from the organization. In our 40 years of manufacturing instrumentation products, we’ve seen many efforts try to get the industry in the spotlight, and we believe this initiative will see major successes.

Because manufacturing is an integral part of the U.S. (and global) economy, garnering more attention for the state of the industry and its practices is nothing but positive. “Every $1 spent on American-made goods invests an additional $1.35 in the U.S. economy,” the release also states. “Furthermore, according to the government’s Advanced Manufacturing Portal, one new manufacturing job creates 1.6 additional jobs in local service businesses.”

So, celebrate American manufacturing and businesses by purchasing products that are “Made in the USA” on Nov. 19—because investing in American-made manufacturing is an investment in the country’s future. 

Fleet Efficiency to Speed Up With Telemetry

“If these cars could talk,” has probably been uttered by more than one fleet manager charged with maintaining service schedules and repairs for their company’s stable of automobiles. For companies from rental agencies to limo services to organizations like the U.S. government, which provides and maintains a vast number of automobiles for its employees, fleet management is a major time and economic expense, and one with lots of room for improvement. Of course, there are instruments like the odometer that let managers know how far a vehicle has been driven. But there’s really no way of knowing how a vehicle has been driven. Installing telemetry monitors and loggers is a way of giving these cars a voice.

Aside from curbing drivers who treat a company car like they’re on the track at Daytona, telemetry can also prove useful in other ways. Predictive, preventative maintenance will be easier to schedule and recognize a need for. Regular service like oil changes can be better monitored and scheduled. What’s more, through trend analysis and location data, the best service provider for a given vehicle at a given time, in a given location, can now be accurately pinpointed and used. Things like repair times can also be logged. Monitoring and data collection are infiltrating just about every industry, a trend that Devar is pleased to be part of.

Monitoring and Manufacturing

Data mining is one of the hottest buzzwords in marketing right now, online or otherwise. The abundance of information about user behaviors and trends (and people’s willingness to share that information) has led to a wealth of available demographic statistics, and an entire industry built around it to make sense of it. A similar change is happening in manufacturing. The ease and availability of installing monitoring equipment, recorders, and data loggers is providing manufacturers with a wealth of behavior and trend information, only this is about their equipment and products, not people. This information is, however, just as useful, if not more so.

The end goal of any equipment monitoring setup is assessing OEE: overall equipment effectiveness. This covers several factors. Is the equipment operating energy-efficiently? Is the quality up to par? Is it working as fast as it can while meeting all necessary parameters? Through a combination of real-time monitoring and the emergence of trends over time, operators can confidently answer those questions and more, leading to several potential process improvements. Those include:

Increased efficiency. Less downtime, greater speeds, and optimal usage of equipment can all be achieved through monitoring and analysis.

Reduced energy use. Statistics let you gauge how best to run your machines.

Traceability. While we’re talking about buzzwords, let’s make sure “traceability” is included. In the quest for ever-better quality control, traceability is a key factor, and detailed records and logs provide the necessary documentation for your customer.

Devar is pleased to provide instruments that can aid in each of these improvements, and more.

Curiosity Update: Monitoring Mars

If you’ve continued to follow the NASA Curiosity mission to Mars (and given all that’s happened in the world over the past few months, you’re forgiven if not)— your ears might have perked up in late November amid rumblings of an “Earth-shaking” discovery. The possibilities were endless —water? Biological evidence? Little green men? Soon enough, we found out, though, that the answer was. . . nothing. Or more accurately, soil. The rover had been testing soil with its Sample Analysis at Mars tool, and had come up with. . . nothing. Or had it?

After all, this wasn’t really just any soil. It was Martian soil. The whole point of the mission is discovery, experimentation, all borne out of, well, curiosity. Maybe there will be such a breakthrough, and maybe not. Regardless of the outcome, there’s going to be a whole lot of that same “nothing” before we do reach that “something.” Rather than feeling disappointed, perhaps amazement that this process is occurring at all is more accurate. And not only is it occurring, but we’re finding out about it, step by step, through monitoring and analysis equipment, data loggers, and communication via telemetry. The possibilities really are endless.

Medical Monitoring Quick Takes

This month, we found not one, not two, but three medical monitoring stories that are perfect to share with you. There’s a little bit of cute, a little bit of serious, and BigFoot (you’ll have to read on to find out). Equipment like our alarms have ties to the medical industry, and it’s important to us that we can play some role, however comparatively minor, in affecting people’s lives.

Without further ado, we’ll get that BigFoot story out of the way. No hairy apes here, but rather a catchy name for innovative software that can play a huge role for people with chronic foot pain. All that’s needed is the downloadable program, and a regular flatbed scanner. Through scanning the foot, the software can detect any visual anomalies on the bottom of the foot that may signal complications from, especially, diabetes. Problems with the feet can often lead to problems elsewhere in the body, so this program is an important first step.

Researchers have developed a medical monitoring chip that’s disposable and can fit on a bandage, allowing for easier long-term monitoring of things like pulse, heart rate, perspiration, and temperature. Imagine wearing something the size of a postage stamp for a month, and ending up with unprecedented data about how your body operates. The health implications are quite major, for everyone from dementia patients to those trying to lose weight. Aside from that, however, perhaps the best part is how it’s powered: via the tiny amounts of RF frequency emitted by your cell phone.

We’ve saved “cute” for last. Very few adults like wearing medical monitors or electrodes for tests or other monitoring, especially for any long period of time. For kids, it’s just about unimaginable. One person hopes to change that with this smiley-face sensor/monitor that’s actually applied like a temporary tattoo, albeit one with electrodes in it. Beyond just a fun appearance, the tiny size and strong adhesion from the design keep the monitors in place – a breakthrough on its own, and relevant to all patients, not just kids.

Curiosity and Telemetry

Here at Devar our remote monitoring and communication devices are usually short-range and fast-responding, as with our medical telemetry products. The recent Mars landing of the Curiosity rover also made use of telemetry, as all NASA expeditions do. Those readings, however, take 13.8 minutes to travel from the rover to mission control in Houston (and “Mohawk Guy”). That might sound like a long time – but not when you consider the 154 million miles that the data needs to travel. Pretty amazing, considering the difficulty we sometimes have getting a cell phone signal.

You probably remember the excitement a few weeks ago when news of Curiosity’s successful touchdown arrived. You might also remember several years ago, the disappointment of the failure of the British Beagle 2 rover, which lost radio contact prior to landing. This explains some of the anticipation and anxiety during the landing period. Some creative telemetry came into play to speed up the delivery of landing data. Making use of NASA’s Mars Odyssey satellite, in orbit since 2003, NASA mission controllers will create a relay of sorts to be able to have near real-time monitoring – rather than a delay as the Odyssey travels through its orbit to sync up with the Curiosity. After all, 13.8 minutes is enough time to wait to learn the results of years of hard work!

Devar might not be sending monitors into space yet, but for all your earthbound monitoring needs, visit our site: www.devarinc.com.