Quality at SKC
A brief introduction…My name is Shauna Phipps, and I joined the SKC Inc. team in April 2025 as the Quality Assurance Manager, bringing over 14 years of experience in manufacturing, materials testing, and quality assurance. In this post, I share an inside look at what Quality means to SKC and some of the initiatives that have been completed or are currently underway since my arrival. At the end of this post, I invite you to share what SKC Quality means to you.
What Quality Means to SKC
At SKC, the quality of our vendors, employees, and ultimately our trusted sampling equipment and media is built upon the foundation of our core principles — Passion, Integrity, and Service. Nobody can afford the cost of poor quality, which can cause defects and delays, least of all OEHS professionals who are responsible for protecting the health, safety, and quality of life of workers. That is why the expertise that SKC brings to its manufacturing ensures that our customers receive consistent quality and professional services. Quality at SKC is not an afterthought, but ingrained into every product we design, manufacture, sell, service, and support.
Commitment to Continuous Improvement ThroughQuality and Quality Management
One of my first initiatives upon arriving at SKC was to conduct internal audits and gap analyses, which helped me understand SKC’s core business functions and assess where SKC stands against its quality standards. Over the months, we have been diligently auditing all our processes while updating our Quality Management System (QMS). The people at SKC have impressed me with their knowledge and expertise. Performing the internal audits has been a fantastic experience, and I feel confident in our processes and overall management system.
We have recently completed a company management review and updated our Quality Policy to incorporate our core values, reflecting our commitment to continuous improvement and capturing key elements of how we will evaluate our Quality Management System moving forward. This updated Quality Policy is available on our website for your viewing.
Quality and Continuous Improvement Through Training
As Quality Assurance Manager, I believe that a key component critical to SKC’s success is continuous improvement through training and cross-training.
SKC is committed to providing its employees with continual training so that you can have confidence in their manufacturing knowledge and competence and ultimately the quality of SKC products.
Of the many services SKC provides, one critical to Quality is calibration and recertification of flowmeters and noise instruments. My goal was to increase cross-training and perform additional quality training on requirements of ISO/IEC 17025:2017. I have been working with our team for several weeks on training to the standard while conducting an internal audit of the process with participants. This has been a huge success, and we have received great feedback internally from those who participated.
Quality Through Increased Awareness
I have established The Quality Corner at SKC Inc., a monthly newsletter segment for SKC employees, that focuses on quality terminology and concepts to educate and raise awareness. In my first segment, I addressed one of the frequently misunderstood concepts…the difference between Quality Assurance and Quality Control. Both activities play a critical role in identifying nonconformances and defects before we ship products to the customer. I share that same information with you now and invite you to check out www.asq.org/quality-resources for even more information:
“Quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC)are two aspects of quality management. While some quality assurance and quality control activities are interrelated, the two are defined differently. Typically, QA activities and responsibilities cover virtually all the quality system in one fashion or another, while QC is a subset of the QA activities.”
With the goal of continuous improvement through increased training, awareness, policy and procedure updates, and collaboration, Quality always has a front seat at SKC. With the changes already made since starting in April, SKC was able to complete their ISO/
IEC 9001:2015 audit in the beginning of August with zero findings.
“Quality is everyone's responsibility.” -- W. Edwards Deming
What does SKC Quality mean to you? Take this brief survey.
Shauna Phipps is Quality Assurance Manager for SKC Inc. in Eighty Four, PA. She is based in Pennsylvania. Shauna is passionate about all aspects of quality and thrives on working, training, and learning with the team at SKC.
