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Date Posted: 19:02:32 11/15/08 Sat
Author: Fred
Author Host/IP: 98.173.140.150
Subject: Vendor parts...
In reply to: M.Denil 's message, "What's Wrong With General Motors is management's fault" on 11:02:41 11/15/08 Sat

One thing that GM (and the rest of the U.S. industry) needs
to do is get tough with their vendors and demand that they
supply high quality parts even if the cost tends to disturb
the bottom line. You can do the most thorough and exacting job
assembling a car, but if the parts that went into the car are
crap, the car will end up that way regardless of the build
quality.
One example is the power window regulators that went into
late 90's W body cars, at least those assembled at the Kansas
City (Fairfax II) plant. The regulators are cheaply made junk
that fail with depressing regularity. GM started using these
regulators on 1997 models and no doubt there were plenty of
warranty claims made on these as soon as the cars were
out there in numbers. But apparently GM management does not
track warranty claims to see what problem areas develop in
these cars once they are in the hands of consumers. Had they
done so, they would have noticed all these window regulator
failures and went back to the vendor and demand they improve
the part. Instead, GM continued to use the same junk through
the 2003 model year and only changed when the W body went into new sheet metal for the 2004 model year. GM still sells
this junk as a replacement part but the aftermarket came to
the rescue and offers a much better regulator at a considerably lower price. It basically gets back to culture, GM and their vendors have this good ole
boy relationship that in practice means that GM will buy
any old junk these vendors offer to them and GM never complains when the parts are of poor quality with high failure rates. Another example was connecting rods being
supplied to the Flint and Bay City engine plants. GM started
noticing a high rate of connecting rod failure on engines coming
out of these plants. It was a bit disconcerting at the assembly plants when these engines were lit off for the first time as the cars came off the line and the rods were
sticking out the side of the block. Management instructed
their engineering department to take sample rods as they
were received from vendor and subject them to destructive
testing in the lab. Seven out of ten sample rods were failing the test and engineering suggested that production
be shut down until either the vendor corrected the problem
or an alternate source was located. Management said they
couldn't do that, the cars had to go out the door on time,
good rods or bad. They said it would cost the company more
to hold up production than aborbing the costs of the warranty claims that the defective engines were sure to cause. When a company knowingly puts defective product into the field, it's little wonder why they're in
so much trouble.

....Fred

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