U.S. Automakers Back on Top

IndustryWeek (Katz) - Plant-floor and engineering quality improvements pay off for domestic OEMs...It was the first time in the 24-year history of the J.D. Power report that U.S. brands as a whole scored higher than foreign competitors, though Chrysler still lags near the bottom with 122 defects.

Some of the quality improvements come from the significant strides U.S. automakers have made in the area of lean manufacturing, says Ron Atkinson, past president and current fellow at the American Society for Quality in Milwaukee. Detroit automakers have been practicing lean for several years, but it appears that the companies' continuous-improvement efforts are finally beginning to mature, says Atkinson. The workforce has begun to accept that lean is beneficial and that it doesn't mean firing employees, he says. The waste reduction enabled by lean eventually leads to good quality. "If lean is done properly right from design to the customer receiving the product, you will have a quality product," Atkinson says.


General Motors has benefited from increased collaboration between its engineering department and assembly operations, along with more standardized production processes, says Joe Mazzeo, GM's executive director of global operations quality. "There is less and less separation than in the past where the organization tended to work in silos," he says. "Now we tend to work more across the organization to make sure we're successful as a whole. While we've had a lot of progress and success in manufacturing, it really doesn't come about without having good, capable product designs."

...Vido says "serious adherence" to standards has driven quality improvements at Ford. He often reverts back to a Henry Ford quote from 1926 when he said the company must standardize what works and enhance standards if there's a more effective way to perform the task. The company has a set of about 60 "minimum-mandatory" procedures it expects plants to follow, Vido says.


The standards are taken seriously enough that each month CEO Alan Mulally reviews a management and problem-solving document, known in lean terminology as an A3, with quality team members to ensure the plants are meeting their goals and requirements, Vido says.