APEX Means Quality

U. S. Steel's APEX philosophy was first implemented at the Mon Valley Works in the mid 1980s.  Then, this quality system was used to address the quality of only one critical market and stood for Appliance Product Excellence.  in the late 1980s this APEX philosophy was adopted to address another critical market supplied by U. S. Steel and stood for Automotive Product Excellence.

Since then, employees recognized that the APEX philosophy needed to be expanded to include al product lines and employee disciplines in order to produce world class quality at a competitive cost and to meet the demands of continuous improvement.  Thus, the APEX Quality System was transformed into a total quality system.  APEX, which once stood for a limited focused quality effort, now stands for the goals of a toal quality system and the efforts of the employees involved, namely: 
 

• All People EXcellence

• All Process EXcellence

• All Product EXcellence

APEX symbolizes the efforts of ALL employees in a drive to reach the top, to be the best -- a drive of never-ending improvement in order to satisfy the needs of our customers.

Mon Valley's goal is "to be the best... not because we say we are, but because our customers tell us we are."