Certificates to guarantee the quality
Quality certificates guarantee the business partners to be trustworthy and their activities to be consistent with specific standards. We invite you to get to know more about the most important certificates, showcasing standards of Model Opakowania’s work in Poland.
In the beginning there was …
Model’s history of obtaining certificates began in 2006 with the ISO 9001 certificate. The company had to ensure that all aspects of its organization i.e. structure, processes and assets represented certain quality standards and followed continuous improvement concept. Equally important in this respect was and will always be employee awareness – gradually raised by appropriate training.
ISO, BRC, FSC …what does it stand for?
According to the ISO standard, enterprise procedures must be clear, written down and routinely analyzed to ensure that they the necessary business aspects are documented in a logical, systematic and effective manner. Accountability and people management must be viewed as an ongoing process in which employee input is considered crucial to the design and improvement of products and services.
The three key elements of this ISO standard are management, leadership and implementation of planned goals. An equally important aspect is the implementation of IT systems. Interestingly, the ISO 9001 standard is originally based on the quality management principles of the Japanese Shoshinkai Production Hygiene System.
Another certificate that is essential us as a manufacturer of corrugated cardboard packaging is FSC. This is the most recognizable certificate commonly associated with packaging and similar products. What does FSC stand for? Forest Stewardship Council guarantees that the products purchased by customers are made of raw materials from well-managed, certified forests that are legally exploited and that in this process workers’ occupational safety is ensured. Moreover, at each stage of the supply chain, the sources of raw and recycled materials are supervised. Such guarantee is attested to entrepreneurs whose FSC-certified packaging is produced in our plants.
The Czosnów plant was the first to obtain the FSC certificate (2014). Then, in 2016, we obtained multi-site certification covering all three locations. In 2020, MOB expanded the scope of the certificate to include the possibility of selling FSC recycled packaging (previously only FSC Mix). From January 2024, all three locations will have FSC’s extended scope.
The Forest Stewardship Council is the most credible forest resource certification system currently existing in the world – the only one supported by major environmental organizations and numerous indigenous communities.
Another global compliance standard we are certified with is BRC PM for Packaging and Packaging Materials. Obtaining it was preceded by many months of preparations including, among others: changes in infrastructure, verification and adaptation of existing documentation and development of an extensive risk analysis related to the safety of food packaging. Numerous training sessions were also conducted for all our employees (white - and blue-collars) as well as for the cleaning company’s staff.
We obtained the certificate at the beginning of 2019 in Biłgoraj, and in the following years in Czosnów and Nowa Sól, each of them with a high AA rating.
BRC PM confirms that the packaging produced by Model meets the safety and hygiene requirements for materials intended for food products packaging. Additional benefits associated with implementing this standard include:
- ensuring supervision over quality, hygiene and safety of products;
- ability to present customers with a uniform system evaluation report;
- system improvement thanks to regular inspection visits.
BRC is one of the standards recognized by GFSI - the Global Food Safety Initiative.
We observe that market expectations regarding manufacturers’ certifications are on the increase. With such a wide product offer currently available on the market, end customers, when making purchasing decisions, are more and more often guided by ecological and ethical aspects of products.
In times of dynamic changes, ensuring product safety and quality is something worth striving for as it helps to keep a competitive advantage on the market. In 2023, Model was among the 11% of the highest rated organizations on the EcoVadis rating platform.
Environmental protection is growing in its importance also for packaging manufacturers and we are ready to face further challenges in this area.
