Introduction
Based in Hull, with over 30 years of industry experience, Designs Signage Solutions stands as a leading name in commercial signage and vehicle-wraps.
Sustainability and environmental responsibility are at the core of everything they do, ensuring a brighter future for generations to come.
Over the last three decades, the company has grown from a small garage-based operation to now being located in purpose built premises and supports clients from across the UK.
The company invested in ISO 14001 in 2022, the internationally recognised environmental standard, to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability.
Why did Design Systems Solutions initially decide to gain ISO 14001?
With sustainability and building a greener economy at the forefront of the company’s values, they had a plan to reduce their carbon footprint and ISO 14001 was essential to their long-term strategy.
Speaking with Head of Finance, Vicki Parker, we asked what benefits the ISO 14001 standard brought to the company, ‘As the company grew, we knew that the environmental standard would demonstrate to our clients that we cared about sustainability and the impact our business was having on the world. After carrying out research, the ISO 14001 standard seemed the perfect fit for us and would also ensure we had a competitive advantage, securing out future growth plans.’
The process
Following successful certification in 2022, the company decided to utilise our innovative ISO software, ‘ISO Hub’, in order to maintain the standard and ensure a smooth process for when the annual audit took place. This year, as their second year audit approached, the company approached our team for further advice and guidance.
Vicki continued, ‘As our second audit approached, we decided to request the support of the Brighter team to guide us through the process and ensure all of our documentation was in place. Due to our team being quite inexperienced when it comes to managing the ISO standard and our busy work schedules, the support from Nat Bell (Brighter’s Associate Consultant) was invaluable to us.
Many of our processes had been set up by our workshop staff last year, which were working really well, however, we realised that many of these had not been documented in the ISO Hub software. Following the advice from Nat and the further training on the ISO Hub system, he
advised us the correct way to upload documents, guided new members of staff on the software and gave our team the confidence to use the system in the right way moving forwards.’
The outcome
Following a successful ISO audit, the team at Designs Signage Solutions were delighted with the outcome.
Vicki said, ‘We’re delighted with the support we’ve received from Brighter and the ISO Hub software has been invaluable. Our managers are thrilled with how the workflows in the software support our system, now we’ve invested the time to be trained on the system, it prompts us without thinking, making it so easy to maintain the ISO standard.
Originally gaining and now maintaining the ISO 14001 standard has enabled us to tender for larger contracts, gain new clients, support our sustainability plans and give us a huge advantage over our competitors.’
Brighter Compliance’s Associate Consultant, Nat Bell, commented on the audit support, ‘It was great to work with the team at Designs Signage Solutions, many companies find it challenging as their ISO audit date approaches, however, with our support, the company successfully passed their second year audit.
The ISO Hub software is ideal for businesses who maybe don’t have a quality advisor or simply need a little bit of support. Now the team has been fully trained on the system, their processes and documentation will be up to date and for any future changes, the prompts in the system will make it hassle-free for the company to maintain the standard.’
Getting started with Brighter Compliance
Is your business looking to improve quality management performance with a UKAS certified ISO certification? Contact us today to find out more on 0191 6404201.Â
