Quality assurance Product and process features – Media lines – Drive technology

A supply situation often worsens at the same time as the quality performance of the supply chain deteriorates by leaps and bounds, since certain product groups access the same resources and bottlenecks suddenly become significantly noticeable. We are active in many projects of that kind, always with the claim to act quickly, but also in the right direction.

In the case described, we stepped in when a disastrous quality situation suddenly became apparent. By making appropriate analogies of the individual error patterns, we quickly realized that the causes did not just extend to the respective supplier, but affected the entire supply chain. Sub-suppliers delivered materials out of specification and only some Tier 1 suppliers had sufficient quality assurance processes in place, leading to vehicle failures in the field. In our project assignment, we tracked all relevant processes and not only identified the actual causes in material production at the supplier locations and remedied them together with the companies involved, but also helped to make the quality assurance processes along the supply chains significantly more robust in order to prevent such abnomalities in the future. As a result, the quality situation for the vehicle manufacturer has improved significantly and permanently.

Profile

Company size

Location

Germany

Period

8 months

Branch

Percentage of individual services

reactive situation stabilization
holistic concept development
risk analysis production performance

Challenge

Field failures due to ruptured coolant lines on the engine

Potential recall

High number of variants due to 2600 affected assemblies with 26 Tier 1 suppliers

Lack of transparency regarding part quality of individual suppliers

No consistent quality specifications at the different Tier-n locations

High number of cross-departmental stakeholders on the customer side

Procedure

Prioritization of suppliers according to delivery volume using Pareto and criticality of manufacturing tolerances

Establishment of reactive and preventive hedging measures at Tier-1

Establishment of a criticality ranking for each location based on supplier visits

Consolidation of respective quality specifications on OEM and tier-n side in the form of a relationship matrix

Development of an award standard with the relevant stakeholders of the OE

Results

Increase in quality standards and optimization of testing and safeguarding measures used at Tier 1 level

Avoidance of a recall

Extended quality criteria for a future award standard in the form of a quality regulation

Total transparency with regard to supplier relationships, delivery volumes and delivery quality along the supply chain

Supplier profiles as a basis for further monitoring and optimization measures

The project in detail

Project Highlights

Identification of weak points in global supply chains

Ideal mix of reactive and preventive measures

High management attention due to media-effective recalls

Long-term safeguarding through new quality regulations

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