Company Makes Inc. Magazine’s List of Fastest Growing Private Companies.

Varney Manufacturing, Incorporated of Medford, Oregon has just been certified by Smithers Quality Assessments Inc., as an accredited AS9100 / ISO9001:2000 contract manufacturing house.   The AS9100 certification is a globally recognized aerospace sector standard and is reserved only for companies committed to providing excellent customer service, continual improvement and outstanding product quality.  ISO9000 is a family of standards for quality management systems maintained by the International Organization for Standardization. Varney Manufacturing, Inc. provides high precision CNC machined product to commercial and aerospace customers.  Smithers is a leading independent accredited registrar based in Akron, OH. 

“Our AS9100 certification assures our customers of quality from the moment request for quotes come in to the time the parts are shipped”, said company president Gary Varney. Varney explained that the impetus to achieve the AS9100 certification thus conforming to aerospace standards was a result on the company’s work with Erickson Air-Crane of Central Point, Croman Corporation of White City and Columbia Aerospace of Aurora, Oregon.    Varney is also currently pursuing opportunities with Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-Grumman, Boeing and Goodrich Aerospace to serve as suppliers.   

Varney was also inspired by the fact that the aerospace industry is a bright light in an otherwise gloomy economy.   The Aerospace Industries Association announced earlier this year that “aircraft backlogs that are higher than ever [are] providing a measure of longer-term optimism.”  Boeing and Airbus recently reported formidable aircraft backlogs.

Varney Manufacturing places an emphasis on attracting business, especially aerospace manufacturing, from outside the Rogue Valley.    Their AS9100 certification is vital to their efforts.   Presently, twenty percent of their business is from outside the valley, largely from Oregon, Washington and Canada.  

Five and half year old Varney Manufacturing placed number 1957 on Inc. Magazine’s list of the 5000 fastest growing private companies in America.  The firm has grown from an initial six employees to the current 14 employees. To fulfill customer demand, Varney has employed as many as 21 employees for extended periods of time. Many of Varney’s workers previously worked at Darex, the Ashland tool sharpener manufacturer, where Gary Varney previously served as that company’s president and as their manufacturing manager prior to that.   Darex is now an important customer.  In terms of space, Varney Manufacturing has gone from 6000 square feet to 15000 square feet.   The shop features a fully equipped machine shops, a production shop and a short run / prototype shop.  The shop includes vertical and horizontal mills along with a two-machine, 30-pallet, FMS System with 25,000-RPM spindles, two, three, and four axis lathes, some with sub spindles and live tooling.

Another Darex alumni, Jim Molloy, who managed Varney Manufacturing's quality system during the accreditation process, said the company’s operations are “controlled by written procedures and instructions that document requirements for all processes.”  These processes include contract review, purchasing, manufacturing, inspection, parts handling, preservation and training.

Starting in July of 2007, Molloy headed a project to implement a quality management system based on the ISO9001:2001 international standard.  Varney Manufacturing achieved compliance with ISO9001 and began to actualize better efficiencies and ways to continuous improve processes.  Soon afterwards, Molloy developed a quality management system to embrace the requirements of AS9100 for aerospace manufacturing.   In addition to all the company’s-employees, Mike Baldridge, a certified AS9100 internal auditor with over 30 years experience in the aerospace industry, worked to achieve the quality designations.  Molloy shared aspects of company philosophy: “Customer satisfaction is the focus of all that we do.  Our quality management system provides the framework to establish and continually improve the manufacturing of high quality machined parts.  We take pride in our workmanship and are dedicated to providing top quality product to our customers.”

As Varney Manufacturing’s Quality Assurance Manager, Jim Molloy received designation as a Designated Manufacturing Inspection Representative (DMIR) from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). A DMIR may issue original and export airworthiness certificates, and can conduct inspections of prototype and production products and related parts necessary to the issuance of certificates.