Recalibration Firm Earns New Quality Accredication
By Sarah Sparks
WASHINGTON – Precision Instruments of North Scituate has earned the first federal Quality Assurance Accreditation in the state. The certification clears the way for the two-person tool-calibration firm to start major expansion planning, but owner Charles Greska said he started working toward the certification not out of ambition but out of sheer necessity.
The accreditation gives a federal stamp of approval to Precision’s procedures for standardizing measuring tools for manufacturing such as automobiles, military equipment and surgical instruments.
Jeffrey Horlick of the National Institute for Standards and Technology, said the new accreditation, ISO-IEC 17025, became a requirement in January, and every manufacturer in controlled industries must prove that the firm that recalibrates its tools is accredited.
“We were under a lot of pressure to get it done before the next audit dates for our clients,” Greska said. “TMI in Lincoln said if we weren’t certified, we’d be out seven and a half weeks of work at $350 a day.”
Technical Materials Inc. of Lincoln, an automotive and communications parts supplier, is Greska’s biggest customer, but three other smaller accounts also asked Precision for certification.
“It’s just to assure that everyone working directly or indirectly with these businesses has the right accuracy,” Greska said. “Take the micrometer; it looks like a c-clamp, but it measures down to less than a thousandth of an inch. If you take one of your hairs, split it into three, then split one of those pieces into 10, that’s about the size we’re dealing with. The measuring tools have to be accurate.”
Fees and groundwork for the two-day audit required for the accreditation cost $15,000, and maintaining it will cost another $8,000 to $10,000 a year – no small change for a company that nets only $30,000 each year. But earning the certificate this July has helped Precision solidify its accounts with 25 Rhode Island and Massachusetts companies, including Alga Plastics, Inc. of Cranston and Copper+Brass Sales of Boston.
Greska, 61, and his wife, Shirley, bought Precision 10 years ago from his former boss, Robert McNaught, who had been running the company part-time. “When I bought the business I asked him [McNaught] whether I could make a living at it, and he said no. He was making about half what we do now.”
Greska bought a copy of the Rhode Island Directory of Manufacturers and went down the list, pitching to companies through calls and a brochure. Four years ago, he left a job as a quality control supervisor at Smith & Nephew to run Precision full-time. Now he hopes the new business will help the company expand, both in scope and in workers.
“Right now my wife and I are the only employees; I do all the calibration and repairs, and she does all the bookkeeping,” he said, “but I’m not going to start looking for more employees until we have the business to support them.” For now, Greska relies on occasional help from his son-in-law, Mathew Rackham, who lives in North Carolina.
The new accreditation may also allow Greska to expand into his second love: aviation. A pilot since age 15 and co-owner of a Hawk XP seaplane, Greska has remodeled planes in his spare time for years. The remodeling has been limited to specialty work, such as restorations for antique cloth-and-wood airplanes, but Greska hopes to convert his hobby into a new direction for his business.
“There’s a lot of business in the aviation industry, with FAA-certified mechanics who need my kind of work – 15 or 20 already around here,” he said, “and I know them. I learned to fly at North Central Airport in its infancy, and I was doing [mechanical] service work in exchange for my flying lessons.”
Mechanics at several local aviation repair shops have told Greska that they now send their tools out of state for regular recalibration. “We could do a service for them, because a guy doesn’t have to lose his tools for two weeks every time they get fixed,” he said.
Greska said he doubled the company’s income in 10 years, and he plans to triple Precision’s business in the next five, as well as training someone to take over the business when he retires. “That would be a good step forward,” he said.
