Certainty at Rocky Brands for Quality Assurance and Control

Modernizing Rocky Brands Quality Assurance and Control

Founded in 1932, Rocky Brands, Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, and markets premium quality outdoor, work, western, duty, and military footwear. Additionally, the company produces outdoor and work apparel and accessories. Headquartered in Nelsonville, Ohio, Rocky Brands operates manufacturing facilities in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. In total, the company employs over 2,300 people worldwide.

As an ISO 9001-2015 certified facility, Rocky Brands manufactures products that meet strict quality and process controls. Rocky Brands Quality Assurance is a top priority at every stage of the manufacturing process. Specifically, it spans from raw materials inspection to various manufacturing processes and final product approval for shipping.

For QA Managers and Quality Engineers working in regulated manufacturing environments, Rocky Brands’ journey from paper-based auditing to a digital quality management system illustrates both the challenges and the measurable rewards of modernization. In particular, their experience is relevant for organizations pursuing ISO 9001, IATF 16949, or similar quality management certifications. These certifications require documented evidence of audit activities and continual improvement as a non-negotiable standard.

Legacy Tracking of Quality Assurance, Compliance, and Safety

The quality team previously used manual checklists and handwritten reports to track compliance and report issues. They then digitized these paper reports, which was a time-consuming process. This approach also meant ample room for human error. Furthermore, reports were not available in real-time.

The limitations of this paper-based approach created significant obstacles for the quality team. The team could not communicate non-conformance findings instantly. Additionally, staff tracked corrective actions through disconnected spreadsheets. As a result, Plant Managers lacked the real-time visibility needed to make data-driven decisions on the production floor.

Audit fatigue was also a growing concern. Auditors spent more time on documentation than on value-added inspection activities. To address these issues, Rocky Brands needed to upgrade its quality assurance system through several key changes.

1. New infrastructure needed to be established so that Wi-Fi was accessible in all facilities
2. Tablets needed to be issued to plant associates to replace traditional handwritten data input methods
3. Associates needed to be trained on the new technology and input processes

These changes came with their own set of challenges. For instance, upgrading the Wi-Fi infrastructure required IT department involvement. This brought the challenge of communicating and coordinating between departments and teams. Furthermore, some staff were not familiar with tablet technology. Consequently, they faced a steeper learning curve and a more difficult transition away from the paper-based legacy system.

Implementing a Modern Quality Assurance System

Rocky Brands decided to upgrade their Rocky Brands Quality Assurance and Control systems using Certainty Software. Specifically, Certainty is a flexible, powerful, and trusted enterprise-level audit and inspection management solution. With this platform, Rocky Brands moved away from manual data entry. As a result, all audit and inspection data became instantly available online for management and reporting across the organization.

Moreover, the upgrade delivered huge advantages in communication. The team now communicates, reports, and corrects any quality nonconformities immediately and in real-time. Instead of finding forms, filling out registers, carrying clipboards, and digitizing information, associates now report everything on a tablet. In addition, they add photographic evidence on the go.

As a result, this has freed up time for associates to prevent quality issues and check processes. They no longer spend hours on paper management and printing. Moreover, plant managers and supervisors now access real-time information to make decisions and corrections on-the-go with reliable data.

Measurable Impact on Quality KPIs

The transition to digital quality management delivered quantifiable improvements across the metrics that matter most to Quality Directors and Process Improvement Leads. For example, by eliminating manual data collection and transcription, Rocky Brands achieved a 70% reduction in the time spent on quality audit data collection, collating, and reporting.

Beyond the time savings, the digital transformation improved several critical quality KPIs:

• Audit completion rates increased as the streamlined mobile workflow removed administrative barriers for frontline auditors
• Non-conformance response times shortened through automated notifications and corrective action assignment
• Cross-site data comparability improved, enabling Plant Managers to benchmark quality performance across facilities in Ohio, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic
• Cost of poor quality (COPQ) decreased as real-time data enabled faster root cause identification and resolution
• Time to resolution for corrective actions dropped, supporting the continual improvement requirements of ISO 9001:2015

These improvements demonstrate how digital quality management directly addresses the pain points that QA Managers and Quality Supervisors face daily. Specifically, it reduces audit fatigue, accelerates non-conformance resolution, and provides the data transparency that leadership requires for strategic decision-making.

Rocky Brands Quality Assurance Manager, Pedro Tapia, remarks that as an added bonus, the environment is happier too, with hundreds of trees being saved by eliminating the use of paper and printers. Pedro adds:

I strongly recommend that any company that is currently filling out reports manually, that perform process checks, quality inspection, and that uses check boxes in their day to day activity, takes a serious look at Certainty as a solution to automate and collect valuable data in real time.

Rocky Brands now uses Certainty Software to perform process inspections, material inspections, status inspections, final audits, and more. Furthermore, by downloading reports to Excel, the team further analyzes and acts on their data. Ultimately, the applications are endless.

For Quality Engineers and Lead Auditors managing audit programs across multiple facilities, the Rocky Brands case study highlights a key insight. The return on investment from digital quality management extends far beyond efficiency gains. In fact, it fundamentally changes how quality data flows through an organization. This enables proactive quality management rather than reactive firefighting.

Whether your facility operates under ISO 9001, FDA cGMP, HACCP, or VDA 6.3 requirements, the ability to access real-time, comparable audit data across all sites is a competitive advantage. In contrast, paper-based systems simply cannot deliver this level of visibility.

If you’re interested in learning about how Certainty Software can help your quality assurance and control processes, contact us today!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What challenges did Rocky Brands face with their paper-based quality system?

Rocky Brands relied on manual checklists and handwritten reports to track quality assurance, compliance, and safety data. Staff had to manually digitize these paper forms into spreadsheets. This process was time-consuming, error-prone, and prevented real-time access to quality metrics. Consequently, the process created delays in non-conformance communication and made cross-site data comparison difficult for Plant Managers overseeing multiple facilities.

How does Certainty Software support ISO 9001 compliance at Rocky Brands?

As an ISO 9001:2015 certified manufacturer, Rocky Brands requires documented evidence of quality audit activities, corrective actions, and continual improvement. Therefore, Certainty provides centralized digital records of all audit and inspection data, automated corrective action workflows, and real-time reporting dashboards. Consequently, these features simplify management review and external certification audit preparation.

What quality KPIs improved after implementing digital audit management?

Rocky Brands saw improvements across multiple quality KPIs. These include audit completion rates, non-conformance response times, cross-site data comparability, cost of poor quality (COPQ), and time to resolution for corrective actions. Most importantly, the 70% reduction in audit data collection and reporting time freed quality teams to focus on prevention and root cause analysis rather than administrative tasks.

How did Rocky Brands handle the transition from paper to digital auditing?

The transition required three key steps: establishing Wi-Fi infrastructure across all manufacturing facilities, issuing tablets to plant associates, and training staff on the new digital processes. However, the change presented challenges including cross-departmental coordination with IT and a learning curve for some employees. Ultimately, the resulting efficiency gains and data quality improvements justified the investment.

Can digital quality management tools reduce audit fatigue?

Yes. Rocky Brands experienced a significant reduction in audit fatigue among frontline quality staff. By replacing clipboard-based forms with mobile tablet data collection, auditors spend less time on paperwork and more time on meaningful inspection activities. Furthermore, the streamlined workflow eliminates the duplicate effort of collecting data on paper and then transcribing it into digital systems.

What types of inspections does Rocky Brands perform using Certainty?

Rocky Brands uses Certainty Software for process inspections, material inspections, status inspections, final audits, layered process audits (LPAs), quality assurance inspections, and lean manufacturing assessments. Additionally, the platform’s configurable templates allow Quality Engineers to adapt checklists for any audit type required across their global manufacturing operations.