Northwest Crewing – part of Germany’s EMS-Fehn-Group – has rebranded as Northwest Competence following an internal restructuring and an increasing demand for its ISO certification services.

Founded in 2009, the EMS-Fehn Group company originally focused on recruiting qualified seafarers for ship owners and managers. However, preparing other companies for ISO certifications soon became a second business field that steadily gained importance.

Jens Feuerhake, Northwest Competence’s managing director, explained: “We have adjusted our internal organisation to this development by separating the business areas more clearly from another.

“ISO certifications and other standards have become more and more important in almost all industries over the past years,” he added. By being certified according to the ISO standards 9001, 14001 and 45001, for example, companies prove that they meet international standards with regard to quality, safety, health and environmental protection.

However, the certification process and the annually recurring audits require a high level of expertise. In addition, they are often associated with a tremendous effort, especially for small and medium-sized companies. “It’s our job to take on the workload and to make the certification process as lean as possible for our customers,“ explained Feuerhake.

Manfred Müller, ceo of EMS-Fehn-Group, added: “Staff members of Northwest Competence have been dealing with international standards for decades, since standards of this kind have been part of the shipping industry for a long time. The company began to prepare other EMS-Fehn-Group companies for audits and reliably guided them to certifications. Today, Northwest Competence is in charge of making sure that all of the group’s 19 companies meet international standards.”

Apart from its sister companies, Northwest Competence has assisted numerous external customers in obtaining certificates in recent years as well.

“We collaborate with all renowned certification societies. At the same time, the members of our team continuously educate themselves in order to be always up-to-date on existing and new standards,” said Feuerhake. This way, Northwest Competence said that it is not only able to supply services with regard to the more common ISO certifications, but for further standards as well such as the Safety Culture Ladder (SCL).

Under the updated branding, Northwest Competence will also continue to provide crewing services. Feuerhake added that there is growing demand in this business area as well, and the company recently appointed Cedric Lorberg as crew manager to enhance its international team.

www.nwcompetence.com

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