The company originated in 1919 as a blacksmith shop in Zeeland. It shoed horses, repaired agricultural machinery, and later sold agricultural machinery. Today, P. Van Eijzeren is an industrial machine builder and construction company. In 2019, the company launched its own brand Fentum, which specializes in the development and construction of agricultural machinery.
KAM/VGM Coordinator Frank Wouters initially worked with a paper system of manuals and registrations. It was difficult to retrieve things and new document versions meant that the handbook quickly grew beyond its capacity. All documentation was stored neatly in folders, but you couldn't really speak of a living system. The days just before an audit were always stressful. Quality management was not widely supported in the organization.
The first attempt at automation did not ultimately go as desired. The system used by P. Van Eijzeren facilitated less and less the needs under the VCA (Safety Checklist Contractors). Adjusting the system to your own needs was very difficult and it was clear that the company had to look for software that was already flexible in itself and that you could easily adjust to your own situation and needs. After an extensive selection, ISO2HANDLE emerged as the ideal software platform.
Frank and his management team chose ISO2HANDLE after an extensive evaluation because the software excels in flexibility and functionality.
"You can set up your environment so that the system best supports your business objectives. Your quality manual can be set up exactly as you want. And that is the basis of your own quality system.
Everywhere in your manual you can make connections to underlying information, forms and workflows. Forms can be set up very cleverly so that they automatically trigger notifications and workflows. Those forms automatically retrieve information from databases and source forms during registrations.
The bottom line is that you can set up an enormously efficient working system. In practice, that means you have to spend less time on executive matters and can put more time into really managing quality. Our employees also find it a nice system to work with because everything they need to do can also be done via their smartphones.
For example, the start work interviews are now prepared in advance by engineering and completed and signed by the employees themselves after the interview via their smartphones. As a result, at the start of each new job, all the necessary information is immediately available. The employees' reactions are super positive. They immediately experience the value of the system. And that's just one example."
Working with ISO2HANDLE has brought more peace and overview, according to Frank. Moreover, quality has become more alive in the organization.
"From flexible software like ISO2HANDLE, you can make a living system and set it up completely to your liking. You can't do that with a paper system with folders sitting in a closet somewhere.
Everything now has its own place and you never have to search again. If you change something in one place, you will also find that change anywhere that information returns.
The reference matrices are also ideal. These follow the High Level Structure of ISO and show exactly where each part of the ISO can be found in your own system. The SCC auditor was positively amazed by ISO2HANDLE and also immediately recognized how well P. Van Eijzeren had its affairs in order."
"In the beginning it does make you a little dizzy with all the possibilities. You could say I went through a steep learning curve the first few months. But now that everything is the way I want it, I can read and write with it.
I have had very good and personal help from ISO2HANDLE. I also took an hour bundle for some help right at the time of purchase. And that works very well. I just had help hours available and was able to realize some specific wishes with that. That all went very smoothly, efficiently and quickly.
All in all, we are now well underway. I will continue to fill and expand my ISO2HANDLE KMS. But with what is in place, we can already say that we can do more in less time and also that we are working effectively to improve our quality.
And the latter, of course, is very important when you make such beautiful products and machines as we do."
