Managing product quality is important for customer satisfaction and your organisation’s reputation as a trustworthy business. Customers want to know the quality and reliability of the vehicles they purchase.
Conducting regular checks helps automotive companies meet customer demands and improve the standard of the vehicles they put on offer. To create an improvement and quality maintenance strategy, keep track of these 6 factors:
1. Durability
It’s an essential point on a new car buyer’s checklist - is the vehicle durable? How long will the different components and accessories last in the vehicle as time passes?
The quality and workmanship of your products influence how the vehicles will fare over time. Thus, the longevity of chosen materials and the manufacturing process must be evaluated regularly.
While it is important to measure metrics like cost and the quantity manufactured for your profit analysis, it is necessary that you also account for defective or recalled units. Monitoring defective or recall rates and the noted defects or issues helps you improve the quality of all vehicles.
2. Wear and tear
Wear and tear is a normal part of the life cycle for almost all products. It’s what happens with regular use. For vehicles, you want to limit the amount of wear and tear that naturally occurs for as long as possible. This can include paint peeling, noises from different parts of the vehicle, eroded rubber seals quality and more.
Take note of these conditions and identify where or how they occur. Then address them and make improvements.
3. Engine efficiency measurement
An engine efficiency rate measures the fuel energy utilised by a vehicle against the actual power needed for the vehicle to move. The aim for automotive businesses should be to increase energy efficiency so that there is less fuel waste.
Ensure your vehicles’ efficiency rate improves rather than deteriorates with every manufacturing cycle.
4. Special product features
Quality also has to do with exclusivity in the automotive game. Customers look for unique or special features that make their driving experience better. Having these features available forms one part of offering quality products. The other is making sure that these features remain functional for as long as the vehicle remains in use.
5. Sustainability and environmental regulations
Sustainability and CO2 footprint are becoming increasingly important in the automotive industry. The vehicles you manufacture must abide by existing regulations and aim to decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
Changes such as those prescribed by the European Directive on mobile air-conditioning systems (MACs) should be a high priority.
6. Audits
Your vehicles also have to meet compulsory requirements in line with automotive industry legislation and compliance policies. Recommended audits to conduct are LPAs (Layered Process Audits) and IATF 16949 or ISO 9001 audits to remain compliant.
Final thoughts
There are numerous factors that contribute to high automotive standards and brilliant quality. You can monitor them all using, for example, a mobile auditing and inspection platform that engages your entire value chain from suppliers all the way to the storefront.
Are you looking for a tool to improve quality, auditing and inspection processes in your organisation? Falcony | Audit ticks all the boxes for low-threshold reporting, analytics and follow-up actions. Is easy to customise, enables real dialogue, data collection, automated reports, and a lot more.
We are building the world's first operational involvement platform. Our mission is to make the process of finding, sharing, fixing and learning from issues and observations as easy as thinking about them and as rewarding as being remembered for them.
By doing this, we are making work more meaningful for all parties involved.
More information at falcony.io.
