these are all only tools. Give a man a $10,000 tool chest and unless he understands cars and desires to fix cars no problems will get fixed.
I have a bit less optimistic view of the result. I have been witness to organizations that thought the tools were a means to the end. But if you give everyone a hammer, and they go around pounding on everything that resembles a nail, not only will the current problems not get fixed, but you’ve just created a whole new set of problems/distractions for the organization. Too many organizations get caught up in the latest thing to go around and lose sight of the real goal- customer satisfaction. They’re too busy gloating over their company wide mandate to use the tools on EVERYTHING that they forget that they’re only tools. There is no subsititute for good engineering/business practices.
Case in point- I worked for a large corporation that jumped on the Six Sigma bandwagon because everyone else was doing it. They had everyone, and I mean EVERYONE using the tools down to the cafeteria workers! The result: they got rid of the sandwich maker and had everyone make their own. Guess what? They were losing money hand over fist because people were making giant sandwiches!! Never saw that coming??? The next thing you know, there is a scale next to the register 
This is a humorous example of a basic issue. They were too busy concentrating on local metrics to see the big picture. Do you want your highest paid employees wasting time making their own sandwiches? Same thing happened in other aspects of the business…
‘You will stamp the metal for the body here, manufacture the interiors here, etc., but you will build the engine and transaxle in your home country and import it as a unit.’
What is wrong with that? I want my engine to run for A MILLION MILES, not for 90k. OK?
Ford is benefiting from the death of 2 big carmakers. It has NOT improved, not better than the rest of the C3. Next year we will see Ford declare bankruptcy. I hope the government stops taking over their their warranty obligations. Let Ford lovers be left without warranty.
'It’s not a switch that you turn on and off. GM and Ford quality has improved substantially to compete with the excellent Asian car quality. ’ says WHO? We need to wait for a decade or two before we can say they improved. You can not decide on the quality of a vehicles based solely on appearance.
Good point.
Many years ago, just after Motorola had won the Malcolm Baldridge Award, I had an opportunity to attend their “university” in Schaumberg Ill. Since they were a customer, I also scheduled a visit to their factory there.
While the university people had trumpeted SPC as the greatest thing since sliced bread, I saw a different story in the factory. The manager got called away and left me with some workers who showed me a different perspective. It seems that Motorola had “beta tested” SPC on some crucial processes and, as can be expected, had great results. They then began an intiative to apply it to EVERYTHING. Employees doing paperwork in the offices were spending more time tracking absolutely meaningless tasks than they were getting the work done. Everyone was finding shortcuts around the system. Nothing was getting improved.
Guys, we are WAY off topic (my fault). And we’ve probably lost everyone else. So I’ll let this one wrap up. Hopefully someone out there reading will have at least absorbed some information, and hopefully it’ll help them understand at least my own perspective on life in the manufacturing industry.
Agree; quality is not a “flavor of the month” thing. It has to permeate your corporate philosophy and use lots of ongoing training to inculcate and reinforce it. Most of all the bosses have to “walk the talk”.
I’ve visited fast food establishments all over the world. MacDonalds stands out as having universal high quality and service standards by employing relatively unskilled and usually young people, and making the concept work in almost every culture.
My brother, who travels widely, now lives in England and he reports that only the Brits can screw up a Big Mac. However it’s as good as the rest of the local cuisine.
I’m the luckiest guy in town! I have a 1998 Regal with the 3.8L engine and never had a problem. My FIL has a 2002 Buick LeSabre with the 3.8L and he’s never had that pesky gasket problem, either. I never heard about it until you started harping on it.
Doing a simple google search found several THOUSAND hits. Yes you are lucky…MILLIONS of GM cars were effected.
Agree; when Ford launched its capaign of “Quality is Job 1” it set itself on the path to employee participation in the quality of the assembly process.
Chrysler implemented the same thing over 20 years ago…The problem is that when push came to shove…these changes were thrown out the window. A new VP gets put in charge and he needs to make his $2m bonus check this quarter, so he cuts costs by stripping out these changes…And for the first 3 months…quality never drops…but 10 months later (AFTER the $2m bonus check)…quality really starts to suffer.
HELLO, HOW DO I CLEAN OUT THE GAS TANK BREATHER? CAN ANYONE PLEASE HELP. I AM LOOKING FOR AN ANSWER BY MIDNIGHT SATURDAY - SUNDAY MAY 2ND - MAY 3RD
“I rebid this contract 4 times and each time were NOT LOW BIDDER, but got the contract!”
But your customer viewed you as the lowest cost supplier, nonetheless. I’m sure it didn’t hurt that he knew what he was getting, too.