Quality Control in Automobile

Manufacturing Industries
Introduction
An organization needs to manufacture high-quality products to stand apart from its competitors in
today's immensely competitive manufacturing environment. Indian manufacturing companies
competing with the world's best face the constant challenge of keeping the organization dynamic.
Considering the dynamic and complexity of business environment, there is always a need for a
continuing effort in research.

Quality is one element in business horizon that has a large influence in the management and
competitiveness of modem business. To refine their product, manufacturers need to put in the
application the established Quality Control tools. Manufacturing organisation applies various quality
control techniques to improve the quality of the process by reducing its variability. A range of
techniques are available to control product or process quality. These include seven statistical process
control (SPC) tools, acceptance sampling, quality function deployment (QFD), failure mode and
effects analysis (FMEA), six sigma, and design of experiments (DoE).

Even though the large Indian automotive companies have more influence on the automotive
industry, they have successfully implemented Quality Control practices in the manufacturing sector
to achieve superior quality, decrease product complaints, and increase sales. However, some small
companies still fail to execute this practice effectively. The potential influence of the automotive
SME’s should not be underrated.

Organizational evolution is difficult to achieve without a well-managed strategy. The adoption of

quality management practices is one such strategy that has been seen to be effective. This Project
objective is to provide a basic understanding the implementation of Quality Management philosophy
encountered in an Automobile Manufacturing industry involving parameters required for its success.
There are not many literatures available for reference. Yet, the well-being of the automotive
industry is important to the Indian economy.

Literature review

Kalra, et,al.shown a model to conduct an empirical study in Indian automotive industry in order to
improve their performance. They develop model developed that includes Quality culture, Critical
success factors of Total Quality Management and quality improvement to study their influence on
the performance of Indian automotive industry. Kalra, et,al. used Three performance variables were
to measure organizational performance which are the Customer satisfaction , Market Share and
Profit result.

Joseph,et.al pointed out Ten critical factors of TQM and its operating system elements
Organizational commitment , Human Resources management (HRM) ,Supplier Integration (SI)
,Quality policy (QP) ,Product design (PD) ,Role of quality department (RQD) , Quality information
systems (QIS) ,Technology utilization (TEC) ,Operating procedures (OPP) ,Training (TRG). Also
developed an empirically based instrument for measuring the TQM implementation in business units
in India.

If top management is strongly committed to implementing quality management programs in the

organization and provides the necessary infrastructure, then the voluntary participation of the
employees will improve and the organization can reach new heights in terms of business
performance and customer satisfaction. The results and findings of R. Saravanan etal. study helped
to understand the intricacies in the Total Quality Services and enrich the subject of service industry
management with respect to developing economies.

Kumar et.al. concluded a clear focus on defining and managing the customer side, process emphasis,
and creating knowledge through innovation will comprise the new business environment. Under this
new environment, TQM systems will shift towards a philosophy of quality based strategic
management systems. Strongly recommended that the Indian industry must make all efforts to
implement TQM, may be in a phased manner. This will help in making industries competitive on
global level. For effective implementation of total quality management, industries also employ
external consultants also for bringing out the much-needed changes for improving quality of their
products and services.

Empirical investigation of Jagdeep Singh identified critical factor for TQM implementation. To
measure the effectiveness of TQM practices Top Management Support ,Leadership ,Customer Focus
,Statistical Process Control ,Benchmarking prepared questionnaire.Their finding are useful
significance of TQM towards performance improvement of manufacturing .

Zhang et,al. presented the instrument has the highest external validity for manufacturing industries
in general and for Chinese manufacturing companies in particular. The instrument was empirically
tested and validated using data from Chinese manufacturing companies, researchers .The
empirically validated TQM implementation instrument consisting of 11 scales (78 items) is reliable
and valid. The Zhang et,al. pointed out the developed instrument can be used directly in other
studies for different populations. Industrial managers will be able to use this instrument to evaluate
their TQM implementation programs and identify problem areas that should be improved.
Researchers will be able to use this instrument to develop quality management theory.

A quality check not only moulds a product free from manufacturing defects but also stimulates more
consumers and hence aids the organization in increase their profit expectations.

Objectives
(i) to explore the perception of employees pertaining to the implementation of total quality
management (TQM) in the automobile industry,
(ii) to identify at which attribute of TQM has been chosen most by the respondents and
(iii) to determine whether there are other quality measurements besides TQM that has been
practiced in those respective organizations.
Methodology
Many studies have been performed to identify critical success factors for successful
implementation QM practices. A conceptual model will be adopted to examine the relationships
between QM practices and organizational performance for Indian automotive industry. Based on
adopted model and a previous studied, research hypotheses will be developed. The next step of this
study will be to design a questionnaire, which will be used for pilot study data collection in Indian
automotive industry. The questionnaire basically consisted of questions to infer the employees’
perception on the concept of TQM, using a five point Likert type scale, with a response of 1
indicating that respondents disagree with the item perceived and 5 indicating that respondents
agree with the item perceived.

References
(i) Zhang, Zhihai, Ab Waszink and Jacob Wijngaard. “An instrument for measuring TQM
implementation for Chinese manufacturing companies.” (2000).
(ii) Joseph, I. & Rajendran, Chandrasekharan & Kamalanabhan, T.J.. (2010). An instrument
for measuring total quality management implementation in manufacturing-based
business units in India. International Journal of Production Research. 37. 2201-2215.
10.1080/002075499190725.
(iii) Kalra, Neha, and Anoop Pant. "Critical success factors of total quality management in the
Indian automotive industry (NCR)." International Journal of Economy, Management and
Social Sciences 2, no. 8 (2013): 620-625.
(iv) The Impact of Employees' Characteristics on Total Quality Service Implementation: An
Empirical Study R. Saravanan &K. S. P. Rao Pages 22-35 | Published online: 05 Feb 2018
(v) Kumar, R., Garg, D. and Garg, T.K. (2009), "Total quality management in Indian industries:
relevance, analysis and directions", The TQM Journal, Vol. 21 No. 6, pp. 607-
622. https://doi.org/10.1108/17542730910995873
(vi) Singh, Jagdeep, Harwinder Singh, and Surjit Kumar Gandhi. "Assessment of TQM
Practices in Automobile Industry: An Empirical Investigation." IUP Journal of Operations
Management 17, no. 3 (2018).
QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY GOICOECHEA, I. &
FENOLLERA, M

QS 9000 to ISO/TS 16949 automobile standards

The ISO/TS 16949 international standard establishes the particular requirements of the
implementation of ISO 9001:2000 in the automobile production.

The PDCA cycle, is used as a work philosophy and is the core principle of ISO TS.

They are known by “The Seven Basic Statistical Tools” because they are appropriate for people with
little formal education in statistics (Ishikawa, 1985):

 Check sheet

 Flow charts

 Cause-and-Effect Diagrams (fishbone)

 Control Charts

 Histograms

 Pareto Charts

 Scatter Plot.

The new seven tools This is an assortment of useful tools for decision-taking at management level
(Barker, 1989). They are not new, but their popularity has increased in the engineering and
manufacturing fields over the last twenty years (Omar & Kleiner, 1997). They are planning and
management tools aimed at Management:  Affinity Diagram  Relations Diagram  Tree Diagram 
Matrix Data Analysis  Matrix Diagram  Process Decision Program Chart (PDPC)  Arrow Diagram

Planning techniques These tools are aimed at preventing the manufacturing of defective parts
(Rodríguez, 2011). They are applied to plan the manufacturing process, manufacturing tools, control
frequency, personnel carrying out controls:

 Benchmarking: competence analysis; it is a systematic, continuous measurement and comparison

process to determine “best” practices in order to improve an organization’s performance (Watts,
2012).

 QFD (Quality Function Deployment): The core of this approach is a chart called house of quality.
This technique identifies customer requirements and provides a discipline to ensure that those
requirements are included in product design and in planning process. It reduces product
development cycles, increasing quality and reducing costs (Chan & Wu, 2002).
 Capability Studies. They are is used to know if manufacturing processes are stable and capable.
This tool is closely related to statistical process control.

 DOE (Design of Experiments): method used for process optimization. Its implementation implies a
reduction in the number of tests, so product development can be organized more economically
(Montgomery, 2004).

 FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis): systematized preventive method intended to identify
and evaluate the potential failure of a product/process and its effects, as well as to determine
actions which could reduce the chance of the potential failure occurring (Carlson, 2012).

It is a compulsory tool in the automotive industry to be aware of the different failures that can arise
at every moment; the aim is to account for three aspects: seriousness of the failure, failure
occurrence or likeliness of occurrence, and failure detection or identification 627 Goicoechea, I. &
Fenollera, M.: Quality Management in the Automotive Industry ability during the process. Once
those aspects are valued, the criticality rating is estimated as the multiplication of the three. If that
value is higher than that requested by the Manufacturer, actions are taken. Since the seriousness of
the failure cannot be changed, focus must be on occurrence or detection, in order to diminish the
criticality rating. The ideal thing is to deal with occurrence, by means of elements called pokayokes
or “mistake proofing” systems that avoid mistakes made by human error. Some other times, it is not
possible to focus on occurrence, and prevention is then tackled, seeking systems that fully detect
failures before moving to the next stage. As far as costs are concerned, it is important to detect
failures at the beginning of processes and not at the end of manufacturing. Control plan: document
used to plan all controls to be carried out in a manufacturing process, per job, as a result of the
FMEA planning. They are mandatory in the automotive sector.

Control techniques The following quality techniques are widely used as control techniques:

 SPC (Statistical Process Control): in every production process, it is necessary to know up to which
extent the products meet the pre-established requirements (Automotive Industry Action Group,
1995). The Voice of the Process (variability observed), and the “Voice of the Customer” (Specification
limits) have to be compared. Therefore, Capability Studies provide indicators called capability indices
(Cp, Cpk, Pp, Ppk), that inform about the level of compliance. On the other hand, process stability is
to be guaranteed in order to tackle them if they are out of control. Control charts represent the
Statistical Process Control (SPC) tool and notices when a process stops following the random pattern
of normal behaviour.

 Audits: there are many types of audits, classified by internal or made by the customer. They are
daily present in automotive companies, where there are several auditors that plan audits of all kinds
yearly: Production, Pre-production (Internal); Run at Rate (Pre-production Customer); Quality;
Product; Spic & Span (5-S philosophy); Security and Regulations.

 Definition of indicators: Key Performance Indicators are quantifiable aspects that reflect the
critical factors. There are many important indicators related to quality. They are defined during the
different Project development stages, like control tool, for example “quality incident indicators of
suppliers”, of compliance of initial samples and prototypes, those referred to delays in deliveries,
suppliers’ quality systems... The main goal is to find proper indicators for particular processes and
find methodology that helps to identify those indicators (Nagyova & Pacaiova, 2009). 628 DAAAM
INTERNATION

Techniques for improvement

Finally, the quality tools used as techniques for improvement are the following:

 Continuous improvement

 TPM: Total Productive Management

 Lean Six Sigma: methodology that firms can use to improve the output quality of a process

 Poka Yoke: “mistake proofing” system that helps to prevent human errors.

 Improvement group. Collaborative working method between several production workers, where
there is a critical figure: the improvement group facilitator (usually a quality-related person), that
guides the group as regards some steps to be followed to solve a problem. That person also provides
workers with knowledge and orientation on the use of quality tools.

 8D Tool (8 Disciplines): it is a method used to resolve customer-related problems; customers are

required to use them. The eight disciplines are followed for problem solving. The disciplines
comprise several data-collection tools, determine root cause, …

Quality scenarios in India

QUALITY MANAGEMENT APPROACHES IN INDIAN AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY

Implementation of the practices like Kaizen, Employee Empowerment, Product Design, Statistical
Process Control, Total Product Maintenance, PDSA, SMED, Six Sigma, Satisfaction Index and
Autophoretic Painting

Reasons of non-implementation