What does “consistent quality” actually mean in everyday work across four countries? At Crimppi, consistency and processes come to life through people, through visits, conversations and the kind of hands-on knowledge transfer that no manual can replace.
Stepping into quality through a week in Vaasa
As Crimppi’s newest location, the Liepāja unit in Latvia is still building its quality function, with Armands Čirkšis playing a key role.
He joined Crimppi in Liepāja nine months ago in a technical sales role, supporting the sales team with drawings, materials and client specifications whenever something changes or needs clarification. Recently, quality has been added to his responsibilities.
“With just over 30 people in total in Liepāja, and only four of us in the office, you naturally cover more than one area. And that is what makes the job interesting,” Armands explains.
Armands is currently spending a week at the Finnish headquarters, working alongside Hanna Kauppi, Quality Engineer, to get a deeper understanding of how the team in Vaasa works with quality.
From documents to real-life understanding
Together with Hanna, Armands has gone through how customer and supplier claims are handled, as well as inspection practices and documentation.
“Reading about a process and sitting next to the person who knows it inside out are two very different things,” Armands explains.
Hanna, who has worked as a quality engineer in Vaasa for over 16 years, agrees and says that this is exactly the point with visits like this. For her, the goal is not just to hand over a process but to make sure the other person feels confident running it.
“I want Armands to leave here knowing that if something comes up, he can just contact me,” she says. “We figure it out together.”
Building the same quality system, step by step
Crimppi operates across four countries, and keeping quality consistent is not accidental.
“We have motivated staff in every location,” says Hanna. “We are committed to continuous improvement, and we have the same processes and exactly the same ERP system everywhere.”
The shared infrastructure makes it possible to work in similar ways regardless of geography, but it is the cross-border visits and active daily communication that turn written processes into lived ones. Hanna has, for example, visited the factories in Latvia and Croatia at several occasions, and is in contact with another Crimppi location almost on a daily basis. Communication is easy and informal: an email, a quick message, a question.
For customers, this consistency has a direct impact. When every Crimppi factory operates to the same processes and holds the same ISO certifications, the country of manufacture does not affect the outcome.
One Crimppi, beyond borders
There is something fitting about the fact that Liepāja and Vaasa look and feel alike: same size, flat, coastal.
“It feels like home,” Armands says.
Perhaps that is no coincidence. “One Crimppi” is built one visit or interaction at a time, by people who are willing to share, ask, and keep the conversation going.
With every interaction, the distance between the four countries shrinks. What remains is just people, doing good work together.
