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In order to meet the increased expectations of OEMs and live up to its own zero-defect strategy, Magna Powertrain set a goal in 2015 to further strengthen its quality objectives. Within this context, a quality initiative was launched to permanently lower warranty costs, reduce quality issues with OEMs, and cut down on defective goods resulting from quality deficiencies that occur during production.
“We were looking for an external partner who could help us define measures—within a few days and as part of an international team—that would enable the company to achieve its quality goals in 2020,” said Joachim Schuster, Senior Manager, Quality, Magna Powertrain.
When employees are involved from the very beginning
Furthermore, the defined measures were to be evaluated in terms of their impact, a roadmap was to be created, and a change and communication plan was to be drawn up. Since the participants from quality, development, and production functions at various locations had never before worked together in this configuration, there was also the challenge of forming an internationally active team. 3DSE’s procedure is based on a behavior-oriented, emergent approach to involve employees from the start and transform them into an autonomously working team. An analysis of success factors, as well as an analysis of existing problems and risks, served as the starting point for defining measures for the quality initiative. This analysis also served as a baseline for quantitatively assessing the impact of the measures. The necessary measures were then defined and detailed in work cells, applying the knowledge about the success factors and existing risks and problems. These measures—related to process, product, and organization—were then quantitatively assessed with regard to their impact on the quality goals. The measures were then organized into concrete packages, which were assigned to responsible individuals and were ready for implementation starting the very next day.
“The result of working together intensively for just a few days was the launch of a global quality initiative with a clear understanding of the current quality situation and the measures needed to achieve our goals. The measures that were developed remain highly relevant to our current quality efforts,” Schuster continued.
