Whats next ?

[Raywood]

The entry barrier to one or two CC sites do have very narrow barriers. At Whitewater Park I do not go up as far as you should as you have to then move out into the entry lane and the barrier is tight for the manouvre at the best of times. With an 8 ft caravan it would be a nightmare.
Chatsworth House has had a few scrapes through the turns as you go in and a wider caravan would make it worse.

What does having a fob entry have to do with the width of a caravan? or the width of the site entry?

Because the reader sticks out so you dont have to get out of the vehicle.Most are protected by metal bars as they continue to get hit by caravans, with an extra 3" the chances increase?

 

[ProfJohnL]

............I am a quality Engineer and would love to audit the quality process for the main manufacturers.................

Hello Dave,

You'd have a heart attack, 20 odd years ago I worked for a major OEM supplier to the caravan manufacturers. As a result of our own QA procedures, we identified that many of the problems customers reported to us were actually down to the caravan manufacturers failing to install our products correctly. As a result we arranged to visit all the caravan manufactures we sold to, and discuss and try and resolve the issues with them.

I saw first hand the production lines at ABI, Autotrail, Avondale, Bailey, CI(Newmarket) Cosalt, Elldis, Fleetwood, Lunar, Swift and others.
As dusty dog regularly points out the employees are on piece work, and quality is the last thing on their minds. I have witnessed screws being over driven so they strip their threads, tacks and staples missing there target so they do nothing or put through wires or pipes, wires yanked because someone cut it too short, expensive OEM products dropped,Hot air ducts crushed to get through a misaligned holes in 'fixed' furniture, damaged gas pipes. mastic/sealant missing, light fittings with no screws, appliance room seals incomplete. In those days quality control was only given lip service and but was in effect non existent.

We supplied the manufactures with packs of spare fittings in case they dropped them, but despite these being on the production lines, the fitters would rob the next appliance, and then reject it as faulty. These would be stock piled by the manufacture and sent back on mass about every 3 months. One ,manufacture even returned about 150 appliances claimed as faulty but they had been stored out in the open and were damaged by rain. Another sent back a pallet with clear evidence that a fork lift truck hand driven its forks into the stack. We have even received other manufacturers products put into our boxes.

Suffice to say it was costing our business in the region of £250K annually.

The industry needs a good shake up, to bring it to its senses. If the any of the far Eastern or indonesian businesses were to consider producing caravans, I'd bet they'd use Proper QA processes, and not only make more reliable products but probably cheaper too.

Whilst TQM is now seen as old hat, some of its associated adages
still have a powerful message. "Right first time" would reduce scrap, and rework costs, result better product and lower costs leading to bigger profits.

Did you know that most caravan manufacturers inflate the price of the caravan by an amount equal to the expected average warranty costs? No manufacture will tell what their figure actually is, but its an educated guess its in the region of £700 per van. When you consider most of teh warranty costs are for niggly little things that for the want of a few pence to do it right first time could save the industry hundreds of thousands, and improve customer satisfaction.

Its a no brainer.

 

[Dustydog]

That was most eloquent and very informative Prof.

I'd love to know the dealer margin.As we all know a good dealer is the one who irons out most the manufacturer's bugs.

 

[rosies]

Well said and put Prof , totally agree . There is and has been major room for improvement if only the caravan manufacturers would realise , but who would ever believe us mere caravanners !

 

[davedart]

I work in the manufacturing industry, and the RFT right first time ethic works really well.
Caravans should be manufactured along the samelines as the automotive industry. The QA procedures in the factories such as Toyota re outstanding. As you said with proper process and NCR reporting with lessons learn't the profits would rise along with productivity. When will they learn. I have never looked into this before but do these companies have IS 9001 certification, if they have there is somthing wrong somewhere.........................

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Dave,

You ask if any of the caravan manufacturers are accredited to ISO9001. Normally business like to shout about awards they have received, and yes Swift, Elddis, and Bailey's web sites devote web pages to the awards they have got, But none of the three even mention ISO9001 or even ISO14000 despite one of them claiming they take care with regards quality and recycling to reduce waste.

Perhaps I have missed it, but on the face of it the big three are not accredited with ISO 9001. Now is this because they know they wouldn't stand a chance of achieving it? or perhaps have tried and failed?

To be fair, the majority of the buying public do not understand the significance or working of the ISO9000 processes, and companies involved in retail would rarely attract greater public sales because they have the accreditation, but as caravan manufacturers do not sell direct, perhaps caravan dealers should implement a policy of only purchasing form accredited companies from their preferred suppliers list.

The business I was involved with was one of the first in the UK caravan industry to achieve ISO9001, and the automotive QS9000 simultaneously. It was the result of this that I went on to act as a management consultant to a number of businesses to support their ISO 9001 accreditation's, including several well known household names.

 

[intransient1]

I agree that the only thing I would want to see is better quality, and let's face it the manufactures have been at it long enough to be able to get it right.
Instead we get new models with the same problems, couple that to waiting months for replacement parts deplorable customer service, and that is a summary of the caravan industry as a whole.
The American system of people getting together to launch class action groups to take manufactures to court has a lot of merit.
Ho hum roll on the revolution.

 

[RogerL]

The car industry works on a 12-14 year production cycle - with a reskin halfway through which everyone lauds as an all-new model but it isn't - and then a facelift at the quarter and three-quarter points to keep it fresh - it works reasonably well with weak points dealt with as running changes together with minor tweaks on the items of standard equipment - it allows several years of development and DURABILITY TESTING.

The caravan industry, on the other hand, starts afresh each year a couple of months before they go on sale - no wonder so much goes wrong!

 

[ProfJohnL]

I agree that the only thing I would want to see is better quality, and let's face it the manufactures have been at it long enough to be able to get it right.
Instead we get new models with the same problems, couple that to waiting months for replacement parts deplorable customer service, and that is a summary of the caravan industry as a whole.
The American system of people getting together to launch class action groups to take manufactures to court has a lot of merit.
Ho hum roll on the revolution.

Class actions are possible here in the UK, but they do need big budgets, and are usually very drawn out with many arguments about legal technicalities, of waht is admissable or not as the case may be..

 

[Dustydog]

I agree that the only thing I would want to see is better quality, and let's face it the manufactures have been at it long enough to be able to get it right.
Instead we get new models with the same problems, couple that to waiting months for replacement parts deplorable customer service, and that is a summary of the caravan industry as a whole.
The American system of people getting together to launch class action groups to take manufactures to court has a lot of merit.
Ho hum roll on the revolution.

Class actions are possible here in the UK, but they do need big budgets, and are usually very drawn out with many arguments about legal technicalities, of waht is admissable or not as the case may be..

Class Actions in the States tend to be about a common event that has caused injury or damage to a number of individuals arising out of the same event eg an airplane crash.
I suspect a Class Action against a dealer would be extremely difficult.
To quote our Prof your Contract for Purchase is with the dealer not the manufacturer.

 

[ProfJohnL]

......Class Actions in the States tend to be about a common event that has caused injury or damage to a number of individuals arising out of the same event eg an airplane crash.
I suspect a Class Action against a dealer would be extremely difficult.
To quote our Prof your Contract for Purchase is with the dealer not the manufacturer.

Hi Dusty,
Unlike SoGA and other consumer regulations where the legal case centers on contractual obligations, The principle behind a class action is to ignore the contractual line and make it possible for tenuous or consequential effects to be the link for making a case.