Korea Flange Appreciative of Winning Industrial Medal, Gold Tower
- President Kim attributes the honor to the company's quality reform activities

The Korea Flange Co. is very appreciative of winning the Gold Tower Industrial Medal at the 30th National Quality Management Convention particularly as it came on the 30th founding anniversary of the company. All officers and staff of the company were euphoric about the development.
President Kim Yoon-soo attributed the company's winning the coveted medal to its quality reform activities including those on upbringing personnel. About 30 percent of its employees have been trained on the program and are assigned to participate in quality improvement activities.
The company pushed its reform program under a system, which led to obtaining ISO9002, ISO14001, ISO/TS16949 quality assurance certificates. The company expanded the program to its subcontractors.
The company feels the shortcut to its success has been the continuity of the program, which was why it introduced activities such as TPM, VE and 6 Sigma activity. Of equal importance for its success has been that the program has been executed at worksites for upgraded effectiveness of the program.
The strength of the Korea Flange has been its stable and matured corporate culture and the positive mindsets of its employees under the corporate culture. It is the core force that powers the company to adjust to any changes in technology and systems, which speaks for the company having such a large number of qualified personnel.
Automotive parts produced by Korea Flange are precision parts that play key functions in cars, requiring a high degree of technology as they are directly related to the safety of people. The company has a large pool of excellently trained manpower in production sectors, along with over 100 in the R&D sector, making it possible for the company to put out good quality cars with superb equipment. The company played a large role in having the automaker selected as the top firm in the world of new cars in the United States.
The company has been able to increase its domestic market share to around 60 percent and is trying to make its share bigger under sustained efforts.
Korea Flange has been exporting its auto parts to Vision Co. of the United States and has been getting propositions for technical tie-ups and exports of its products from companies around the world.
In order to keep the company competitive and continue to provide quality products to its customers, the management of quality and upgrade of technology through R&D efforts will continue to be pushed steadily. The company now has some 100 strong research staff at its lab set up in 1996 to do research in such key areas as parts designing, development and other projects all on its own. In a bid to obtain advanced technology, the company concluded tie-ups with some world-renowned auto parts makers including NTN, Delphi, Bosch and others. The company has also been making steady investments in its facilities in line with its mid-to long-term new technology introduction plans, designed to make its parts competitive and diversified.
Top managers of the company have been striving to help the company win love and trust from customers and shareholders.
Keeping customers satisfied is the company's key management policy, which is why the company wants to produce goods that customers want, not limited to excellent quality products and services.
Keeping customer satisfied has been understood as the main means for survival for the company and all programs on quality improvement have been targeted at customer satisfaction.
The top management of the company has also been engrossed with the idea that quality is the only means of survival for an enterprise in the 21st century. They think that what moves customers is quality and management organization has been geared to meeting the goal of customer satisfaction as its top priority.
They also want every one of its employees to be creative and challenging all the time in line with the company's history hardened by technology, globalization and informatization.
Korea Flange has its plant in Ulsan with about 600 employees, and capitalized at 20.3 billion won. Its sales are projected to rise to 524.2 billion won this year, up from 443.8 billion won. Its key auto parts include C.V. Joint, axle assembly and others. nw