Infosys-Oracle Blog

In my last blog, I wrote about some quarters linking recent Toyota recalls to usage of standard parts. In my opinion, usage of standard parts could not by themselves have lead to the recalls, they probably would only have made the number of impacted vehicles more because of the same part being used across models. Toyota has recently announced a spate of steps aiming at stricter quality control processes, formation of global quality committee and designating quality control officers for each major geography.

Keeping the focus on our discussion of standardized parts designed for use across multiple product models, a few steps that come to my mind that can be taken in general by all manufacturers (not just vehicle) to ensure that such parts are subjected to a stricter quality control are:

• Have a mechanism of identifying the standardized parts when they are received (such as a simple note on the receipt traveler) such that receiving folks are aware of stricter inspection to be given to these parts.

• If skip lot or sampling inspection quality controls are used on such parts, evaluate whether to move to a regular inspection, or whether to enforce stricter skip lot and sampling criteria for such parts.

• Build mechanisms for early detection of any nonconformances trends in these standardized parts so that steps can be taken along with the supplier for early resolution.

• In the products, design sensors that can detect problem signals which can be analyzed at regular intervals.