The Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research has attributed that phenomenon to a design practice that's particular to Asian automakers. Those manufacturers, the Center says, tend to think in terms of systems, rather than individual parts.
"There's a misperception about Japanese quality," said Jay Baron, CEO of the Center for Automotive Research, in a 2005 Design News article. "People believe that Japanese automakers build all their parts very precisely, and it just isn't true. We found they don't care about making each part to a precise spec. They just want the assembly to be in spec."
Champion agrees with that assessment. "It's the assembly that counts," he told us. "Among the Japanese automakers, there's great attention to detail and time spent making sure that nothing rubs and everything is beautifully laid out."
He added, however, that those differences are a result of corporate culture. "It's just a matter of what's most important to the company," he said. "When Toyota went through its sudden unintended acceleration problem a couple of years ago, its engineers put up quality boards. They had external reviews. They put all sorts of measures in place to maintain their reliability leadership."
In contrast, North American companies tend to appease stockholders who want short-term profits -- often at the expense of long-term reliability, he said. As a result, the focus shifts to cost-cutting, instead of to engineering and quality.
"It comes down to what upper management instills in its work force," Champion said. "Those companies can get there if they want. They just need the single-minded focus to come down from upper management."
If you want to get an idea of how convoluted GM is regarding engineering vs. management, read the book "All Corvettes are Red" by James Schefter. It's about how the C5 (1997) Corvette came into being - and how it almost never existed.
A lot of the C5 had to be built in secret - even from GM.
After reading this book, you will appreciate just how astounding it is that GM is able to build anything at all, let alone Corvettes.
Although this book was written many years ago, looking at the present crop of crap from GM and others, I doubt much has changed. I'm sure many of the other manufacturers have similar issues.
The book is a graphic picture of what happens when bean counters run a company instead of people with a passion for what they produce.
In the case of the Corvette, passion won, but only barely.
Thanks @Chuck! I've commented directly on the article you provided. Way awesome stuff. I'm dismayed that seven years later, we are not using the functional Build more publically.
Another issue that follows due to cost reduction is life expectancy. This is a two sided benefit to the automakers in the USA. One side of it is cheaper materials meaning a lower cost to make an automobile. Price reduction to cost savings is not in par either. Most of the cost savings go to the automaker. The other flip side of the coin is the life of the product is reduced. And USA automakers see this as opportunity gained because it means more replacement parts for the cars already in sold.
Complexity of design is also an intended feature. I have had several US made cars and a Toyota. To do simple maintenance sometimes on the US cars is so frustrating you are always tempted to go to the dealer. Try changing the thermostat on an impala 2001. Also to remove the tensioner for the belt on a corolla 2005 you have to lift the engine block by half an inch???? Of course I just cut the bolt instead and torqued another bolt that was half an inch shorter. I can do that because I have vibration experience. It's actually my specialty and I know that bolt will not loosen due to vibration. Average Joe usually does not carry this knowledge around and will be forced to send it to a dealer.
@GlennA - Management was swayed by the late 1970's gas cruch and decided the Fiero would be a "fuel-efficient sporty commuter"... sort of the Pontiac Chevette, rather than the Pontiac Corvette... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Fiero
"Quality" is a misleading word. In manufacturing, Quality is conformance to specifications. So if your design specification is junk, you can make "quality" junk. And Defect does not equal Defective. "Defective" may mean 1 or 2 Major Defects, or possibly 4 or more Minor Defects.
Quality is also "in the mind of the beholder". I remember the story of a driver who was willing to wait 2 weeks for parts for his Mercedes - "a fine piece of automotive engineering", but complained that getting parts for his Dodge would take 2 days = "piece of junk".
I agree that engineers may be hampered by the limits set by upper management. I wonder who decided that the Pontiac Fiero, which I thought was supposed to be the Pontiac Corvette, would have a 4 cylinder engine. We called it "All show, no go".
Chuck, given what you said, it is interesting to note that the differences in overall quality that I have seen are miniscule. The Consume Reports methodology is tailored to their own measurement systems. I have in the past picked products (not including cars) that were not high in their estimation, but that worked great for me and others who had them.
I prefer those measures that track actual reported defects over time. In those, as I mentioned, the probablity of experiencing a defect with any of the automobiles offered today is much lower than it was ten or twenty years ago. In addition, the difference in manufacturers rates of defects were close to zero.
I like a well laid out system as much as anyone else. On the other hand, for consumer level products, it is the results that count. Just listen to Car Talk on NPR. Most of the people who call in have foreign made cars that are older. They have problems. A car won't last forever without a lot of work. I know, I started out with small English sports cars made in the 1960's. Fun, stylish and incredibly unreliable. We often said that those parts we had the most trouble with were designed by the junior engineers. There were other parts that would last forever.
@Chuck -- in a nutshell "Those manufacturers, the Center says, tend to think in terms of systems, rather than individual parts." Wow, does this hit it right on the head. I've been teaching Systems Thinking to undergraduate future technical managers since 2000. The idea of "parts make systems" rather than "systems are comprised of parts" is something that takes quite a while to transform in our students. Not knocking 12-years of elementary and secondary school, but they too often take a bottom-up approach when it comes to teaching concepts -- picking up seemingly random concepts that are only integrated in the much higher grades, if at all. In my own experience, I didn't get the value of algebra, geometry, trig, and calculus until I took Differential Equations and applied it in my Physics and Engineering Mechanics courses.
One of the memes I use in my Systems courses is "Start from Scratch rather than Patch" -- bolting on components makes a product "multi-functional" but it does not make it "inter-functional". When each of the component parts is integrated into the design with an awareness of the other parts, the concept of "elegance" is allowed to emerge...
This post offers a pretty insightful look into the psyche of how auto makers come at creating a culture around product development. The thing that stood out to me is the whole Japanese focus on looking at engineering from a systems standpoint. Not a new concept, certainly, but definitely one we are hearing spades about as products, be it cars or aircraft, get more complex.
Tesla Motors plans to roll out a “compelling, affordable electric car” that will sell for about half the price of its high-profile Model S by the end of 2016, company chairman Elon Musk said last week.
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