davedart said:
............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.