Jim's thread has re-emerged, and assuming there has been no exaggeration it does make for a sorry tale. http://www.practicalcaravan.com/newforums/fm_messages.asp?FO=5&FM=441517
A number of people have alluded to the Quality Assurance or Quality Control systems at both the dealer and the manufacturer even quoting ISO 9000. Lutz (in Jim's thread) is absolutely right when he says that ISO900 does not ensure the quality of a product, all it does is to state that the company has a management system that conforms to the required elements of the ISO 9000 business management model.
ISO 9000 influences all aspects of management, including:- human resources, market research, design & development, customer orders/contracts, sales & marketing, procurement, materials handling, production, despatch/delivery, accounts and customer satisfaction. It does not only apply to businesses, but it can be used by any organisation.
Whilst ISO9000 has no direct influence on the quality of products (or services) offered by a company, by adopting and conforming to the ethos enshrined in the model, the principals of a company should look at all types of systematic failures and by correcting the underlying processes, it should carry forward and indirectly encourage improvements into its services and products.
This does not supersede conventional product development but it should make the development systems more robust, accountable and responsive to customer issues. It should also reduce the problems of a company repeating design mistakes. (Caravan outer panel joints that leak?)
The underlying ethos of ISO 9000 is "Continual Improvement", and companies can loose their accreditation to the model if they fail to demonstrate this. For the uninitiated this does not mean change for the sake of change, but the managed review of all processes, and if an improvement seems possible, to consider it carefully, its consequences, and how it can be measured and shown to be effective.
World class companies that employ QA systems like ISO9000, put a lot of effort into the design of a product, and the design of the production process. Rather like a cake, if you select the correct recipe, the right ingredients, and control the method of mixing and cooking, the results are a good cake. But if you change any one of the main elements, (recipe, ingredients, mixing or cooking) the results are unpredictable. You may be lucky and get some good ones but you will certainly get some poor ones.
With a cake it is impractical to test each one as it comes from the oven as it will damage the goods, so either sample test one from each batch, or if the confidence in the processes is high so that human errors are eliminated, the quality is then defined by monitoring and controlling the processes this is Quality Assurance.
On the face of it it might seem silly to compare a caravan to a cake, but the underlying processes are the same, Design = recipe, materials procurement = Ingredients, production = mixing & cooking.
The fact that some caravans reach customers with non-conformances proves that one or more elements from the design through to sale processes are not properly controlled by the manufactures.
It must be recognised that as the number of different parts or production processes that goes into a product increases, there is an increasing risk that a non-conformance will occur, Caravans parts/processes count falls between a cake and a small car but compare the fault rates of cakes, caravans and cars, and caravans are the poor relations.
A properly resourced product manufactured within an effective QA structure should not need a PDI at a dealers. Manufacturing faults should be avoided within the production facility by good process control, or where that is difficult then an interstage inspection process that prevents a non conforming sub assembly or product from progressing to the next stage without being rectified.
Like it or not the caravan manufacturers are the architects of many of own their problems. And I am certain that they could do a lot more to reduce the severity and inconvenience and number of non conformances. These and customer complaints are expensive to resolve compared to the cost of avoiding the problem in the first place. This does not necessarily mean working harder but smarter - being more effective.
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