Emphasis Needed on Quality Control to Reduce Recalls

Oh my goodness!!!!

This so called expert should be sent home to at least become familiar with the terms that he uses (and abuses). What a joke!!

"Quality control" is an old and obsolete terminology. It has proven itself to literally guarantee failures. "Quality Assurance" is the methodology that should be discussed, and the automotive manufacturers very much understand the difference.

Then his comments on "Lean" and at the same time talks of "consignment stock" show a complete lack of understanding of the automotive manufacturing industry.

Then finally, he talks of "rigorous audits". Heck, I'd rather a Lloyds quality and environmental third party audit, or even a NIST laboratory audit than a second party audit by the auto manufacturers. As second party, they not only know how your system should be working, but the actual outcome and SPECIFIC issues that affect them.

I don't know where this guy came from, but it would seem his opinions are not founded in significant industry experience.

Sorry for the rant, but the article just hit a few of my buttons.

what efficiency are they referring too?

Customer support is far from efficient.

Fuel consumption is dropping on GM vehicles faster than they know what to do with so thats not a gain in efficiency.

Perfect in a computer simulation fails dismally when applied to real life working conditions so thats not gain in efficiency of design.

Good point, the design cycle is so short these days and they rely so heavilly on simulation and accelerated life testing neither of which will actually simulate the degradation of the multide of body earthing points which will doubtless screw up the overcomplicated electronics/software in 7 years time.
Yes guys, you guessed it, by damn Nissan Micra is isn't letting me lock the doors, because it's decided I havn't really switched off the ignition and it won't recognise the 'Intellikey' (a missnomer of the first order). Do I really want to risk putting it into the garage for repair when it's only worth £2k and they'll doubtless just change n+1 'modules' without actually finding the fault and charge about£800 for their effort?. Maybe I'll just threaten it with my longbow and try the old dissconnect the battery for 10 mins trick...I wonder if Microsoft had anything to do with their software?
<click, rant mode off>
Del

There is no reason to fail if the quality control system is implemented with full sincerity,

Automobiles used to be machines that were designed by people with a mechanical background. Everything, from under the hood, to the hand crank windows, were designed to work, and easy to fix if they didn't.

Any of us that owns and uses a computer knows that the more cars are designed by computer people, rather than mechanical people, the less reliable they will become.

In many ways a load of the quality control or lack there of is the engineering persons or entire department that never bother to think that what they design may possibly be used in some other environment in an entirely different level of work load than what they themselves would use it for.

A great example I recently got first hand experience with is a good friend of mine just bought a brand new Chevy 2500 with the new urea based diesel emissions system on it. What a horribly designed piece of engineering junk!

The urea mixture freezes at around 12 F which is far above what our North Dakota winter temps average day in and day out. If the emission system does not cycle after so many miles or run time it goes into a safe mode where it will not go over 55 MPH until they system cycles. If it is driven long enough that way it goes into a second creep mode that wont go over a few miles an hour until a dealer service place resets the computer.

The urea tank can not be topped of until the tank is empty or it somehow screws up the computer and it goes into the limp modes due to some idiot deciding that the tank itself doesn't need an an actual sensor that reads anywhere between full and empty. Also that urea tank on a heavy duty off road designed vehicle is made of plastic and hangs down out in the open several inches below the frame on the right side.

The new and improved shift linkage is routed in such a way that when snow gets on the transmission it melts and then refreezes around the cable and linkage effectively locking it into place until the vehicle is either left in a heated building over night or someone crawls under it and beats the ice off the linkage with a big hammer.

Lastly for service and customer support they give you On star with is about as useless as talking to yourself in regards to what help they can actually give you if there is a real problem. Plus to pour salt onto the customers wounds the Chevy Lemon law states that the vehicle must be out of customer use for 30 days or longer at an authorized dealership for the exact same problem.

You can own it for 40 days and have it at the dealer for 35 of it but if those 30+ days it was down were to fix more than one problem its not really a lemon according to them.

Emissions system problems four times 14 days total shift linkage issues 3 times and 5 days total, mystery electronic engine management issues 3 times and 9 days total, Drive train related issues twice and 6 days total. Yes the will say it was there for 35 of the 40 days since it was purchased but not one single problem added up to over 14 days so by their reasoning thats not a lemon and thanks for spending $50,000+ on our top of the line work truck and please come again.