ISO Without the Headache, Adam Marsh-EP 227

I encounter a lot of friction in my work. Too many obstacles get in the way of me doing the things I need to do and the things I like to do.

I know all of you out there have friction in your work too, and if you’re in the manufacturing business you likely encounter friction when you have to achieve the necessary quality to be ISO certified.

Today’s guest on the show, Adam Marsh, has a company called Ledge Inc. that guides manufacturers through the ISO certification process.

Getting ISO certification can be an overwhelming undertaking, but like so many challenging and complicated tasks, if you just have the right guide at your side to lead you through, it’s not nearly as difficult as it first seems.

Reducing friction is Adam’s specialty. In addition to talking about quality, we talked about how he reduces friction in hiring new employees, creating a skilled manufacturing workforce, and even figuring out what to make for dinner.

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Interview Highlights

Ledge Incorporated

Noah Graff: Give me a brief overview of what your company does.

Adam Marsh: We help manufacturers meet quality management system requirements. If someone has ISO 9001, we help them manage and achieve those certifications. We also help them implement new quality systems.

I’ve been doing this since 2011, supporting my father who started in 1987. We have a team of 11 serving about 250 companies across the country. Our target is small to medium manufacturers who struggle with this. They might not have the internal knowledge to meet customer requirements, especially when selling to major OEMs.

Noah: What are the main sectors? It’s not just machining, right?

Adam: We work with a lot of machining companies, but also medical device, environmental certification like ISO 14,001, aerospace, injection molding – you name it. We also have a food safety division with experts in that field.

Noah: ISO has always seemed complicated and intimidating to me, with all these numbers.

Adam: We don’t make it easy. We have so many abbreviations that if you’re not in the industry, it can be hard.

I don’t feel like quality people have historically done a great job of helping manufacturers simplify this. That’s what my company does – we take complicated standards and turn them into something you can actually deliver day-to-day.

When I see a 10-person machine shop with a hundred-page quality manual, I want to throw it out the window and start over. It’s too complicated.

They’ll never follow or keep up with it. The idea is to say wha