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POF gets ISO-9001 as producer, exporter of quality armament

WAH: Pakistan's state owned armament manufacturer, Pakistan Ordinance Factories, has crossed a major milestone by acquiring international recognition of quality."It is indeed a matter of great honour that the Pakistan Ordnance Factories has been awarded the coveted ISO-9001 certification," an official of POF said here on Sunday.

He said that from the beginning, the aim of POF has been to increase its productivity through quality improvement in all its facets, but particularly in the past year it became a self-sustaining commercial venture.

A nucleus for the manufacture of small arms, it has grown into a large modern engineering and chemical group of 14 factories with six servicing and supporting groups and work force of over 30,000 employees.The POF has come to produce an extensive range of latest munitions systems for ground, air and naval forces.

The POF plants comprise weapons factory, steel foundry, tungsten-carbide foundry, machine-gun factory, filling factory, propellants factory, heavy artillery ammunition factory, brass mill, tank ammunition factory, explosives factory, tungsten alloy factory and medium artillery ammunition factory.

These plants produce 70 major products for the three armed forces and the main products include automatic rifles, light, medium and heavy machine-guns, mortar and artillery ammunitions, aircraft and anti-tank ammunitions, tank ammunitions, bombs, grenades, landmines, pyrotechnics, signal stores etc.

"In addition to meeting domestic demand of the armed forces, our products are in service in several countries of the world because the quality of our products conforms to the highest international standards," the official said.

The POF is the only industrial setup in Pakistan to contribute to the country's foreign exchange, an amount exceeding $21.5m in the last fiscal year.

"This is the record foreign exchange earning by POF in the last seven years and in itself speaks of our improving quality management system and continued endeavour to improve customer satisfaction," the official said.

"The POF is taking care of almost 100 percent requirements of the country's half million land forces," he said.

"This modern defence industrial complex, the oldest and largest in Pakistan defence production industrial system, has also helped many other sister defence production systems to flourish," he added. "Resultantly, today, Pakistan has a reasonably good defence production potential in which Pakistan Ordnance Factories occupy the central position," he said.

The initial products were of British origin and standards but over time American products and standards were introduced, followed by German and Chinese. The POF is currently working on NATO and other internationally recognised standards.

"The amalgam of technology from various sources has resulted in the blossoming of a high standard of workmanship and quality control," the official said.

POF started with the manufacture of 303 rifle and its ammunition, with an old plant of World War II vintage and has since moved into the era of state-of-the-art technologies, computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacture.

During the last decade, in particular, there has been massive influx of new technologies that has made the POF an armament manufacturer of international repute.

"While the POF is essentially geared to serve Pakistan armed forces, it is equally capable of meeting the needs of friendly countries in the range of products that they manufacture," the official added.

"By venturing in the field of exports on regular basis on a modest scale, the POF has established a reputation as supplier of quality goods in the international market," he said.

Exports have been made not only to developing countries but also to buyers in several European, South Asian and Middle Eastern countries, apart from the United States.

"The POF has emerged as the largest exporter of manufactured engineering goods in Pakistan and its progress is a source of encouragement and pride for the country," the official said.

"To keep pace with the armed forces of the 21st century, the POF has developed an integrated modernisation plan and, given the needed resources, it can look forward to self-reliance in the field of armaments production," he added.-Internews