Born and raised inNashvilleTennessee, Sandra Driskell joined the Miller team nearly twenty years ago as Miller’s Quality Control person. Before coming to Miller Products Company- Sandra ran her own business going from company to company doing private consulting work and helping companies become ISO certified. “I couldn’t get (a company) certified, but I could get all their data in place- their documents, manuals, etc.”
Being ISO certified is a major accomplishment for any business. The history behind ISO certification began in 1945 when car parts were all being made and put together in the same factory, but as time went on parts began being produced in a variety of locations; though, when the parts came back to be assembled together- nothing matched. The ISO (International Organization for Standardization) knew this issue needed to be fixed so they created a business model that standardized all certified manufactures. Today they deal with training, calibration, documentation, good equipment, getting management involvement, product realization, and purchasing. Quoting Sandra, “to make the ISO system work, a certified company must have everybody involved to answer who, what, when, where, why, and how; questions I strive to answer on a daily basis”. Once in place, the ISO system ensures a certified company will be able to recreate the exact same product even one hundred years down the road. The system is constantly being tweaked to make the changes and times- with new standards debuting in 2015.
As for Sandra, she could be better known as the captain of the Miller Products mother-ship. All projects that go through the company start and end in the QC lab. “I happen to be the information highway”, says Sandra. At any active time Sandra is dealing with around 320 active jobs. Her day starts out making sure all jobs are written up, taking care of receiving; overlooking each project, verifying all samples and products match; going through receiving inspections, double checking, measuring, calibrating; checking speed, accuracy, depth, width, and finally handling training- knowing every job in the plant.
Sandra believes in no waste- keeping Miller Products as “green” as possible, for when it comes to project faults “it’s the unexpected that gets us.” Sandra Driskell is one of the many hard working employees at Miller Products Company. At any given time she can tell you the exact location of any part; to the point that not even the best computing system could deliver. “Track, track, track- without documentation you can’t track anything.” Since her start, Sandra has assisted in over 30,000 projects and has created a library of books that contain every record possible the company could ever need, and nearly 3,400 prints- backed by an impressively designed excel worksheet that is accessible to all company employees.
Sandra’s favorite part of her job is setting all the little dials and gauges- “you have to be able to make sure everything is tight and in sound check. There are lots of detailed parts.” It is that commitment and organization that has helped push Miller Products Company into the modern age of manufacturing.