General Motors Quality

I am frustrated! I read a column in the Wall street Journal today. The column concerns itself with answering car questions from people needing advice as to what car they should purchase. The customer might say that he is looking for a mini-van and asks what the writer might suggest. There were several questions from various readers all of which ran along similar lines. The thing that frustrates me about all of this is that none of the recommendations were for American made products. I retired from GM in 1992. I had hired in in 1964 as an inspector on the pick up cab line where it was my job to inspect the painted and equiped cab to insure that it contained all of the options required. I was also supposed to look for appearance items. The quality wasn't that good, but we were one of only three manufacturers and the attitude of Gm and I imagine Ford and Chrysler was, "take it or leave it." Then the Japanese vehicles started arriving. The American automobile manufactures laughed. The first Toyota trucks were rusted out within three years. The American auto industry assumed that the Japs would just go away."Made in Japan." was a symbol of junk. Well they didn't go away. They went home and adapted until their quality was excellant. In the mean time the American auto industry bided it's time. Surely there was no threat to the American auto industry. They finally woke up but it was late in the game.

Things have changed regarding quality. I can only speak about GM, but I am reasonably sure that Ford and Chrysler's quality has improved remarkably also. As I said earlier I retired from GM as a quality control supervisor in 1992. I then contracted at various GM plants around the country off and on for about eight more years as a production supervisor. The quality improvement was unbelievable! The last plant where I worked was in Kansas City, Mo. They built The Olds Intrique and the Pontiac Gran Prix. I couldn't believe the measures taken to insure qualitiy. The instrument panel line was a good example. The operator that installed one of the air bags had a computer monitored torque motor. Periodically the proper torque would not be attained on one of the bolts. Either the operator removed his motor to quickly or there was some other problem. The whole line would stop immediately and would not run again until the proper torque was achieved. All crucial fasteners had a similar system of monitoring. I remember rare instances where there had been a malfunction and a loose fastener was discovered beyond the normal work station. A call was made to shipping where several hundred vehicles were waiting to be shipped and a hold was placed on all vehicles until every vehicle on the property had been manually inspected.

Robots have made a significant difference in quality also. I worked as a production supervisor in the body shop in the Kansas City plant for over a year, and can tell you that there are very few manually operated spot welders anymore. People simply load parts for the robots. The robots then place the parts exactly where they are supposed to be and then place the required number of spot welds precisely where they need to be. The robots will even stop funtioning when there is a need to have their welding tips cleaned or changed. The paint shop is the same. Robots do all of the painting. They aim themselves at exactly the right angle all of the time. They too will stop when conditions are not perfect.
Vehicles are now designed to be much easier to build. Wires for example will only connect to one source. In the old days the assembler could make mistakes, and when he was absent mistakes were certainly made. These are just a few examples. There are many more

I firmly believe that GM builds and delivers a world class product. We are as good or better than the rest of the world. The only fault that I find with GM is that they don't tell the world. They need to blow their horns with all of their might, and I don't feel that they are doing that. I feel that they think that they are above that kind of thing. I hope that they wake up before it is too late.

The Ol' Curmudgeon