The Culture of Quality in the Automotive Industry

Each industry will have different interpretations of the concept of Quality and how to prioritize its tenets within their own field of practice, expertise and work experience. Perhaps the best fundamental principle is the definition of Quality from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as “the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements where a requirement is a need or expectation.”

Graphic of frontline workers working at an auto plant

Automotive quality management dates to Henry Ford’s vision of a trained workforce assembling mass-produced vehicles with consistency and precision. Today, automotive quality reflects three principles:

  • Quality in Product means the ability of the vehicle to fulfil its expected functions and behavior, such as engine efficiency, product features and environmental exhaust standards.
  • Quality in Production means producing vehicles of a consistent quality standard while working within defined cost constraints.
  • Quality in Ownership relates to customer satisfaction during their ownership of the vehicle. This includes the customer experience
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What Can Go Wrong, Will Go Wrong: Deepwater Horizon

ISO 9000:2015 Quality Management Systems – Fundamentals and Vocabulary gives the definition of Quality as the “degree to which a set of inherent characteristics of an object fulfills a requirement.” While this broad definition might bring to mind many of the traditional Quality ideals, such as process efficiency and customer delight, perhaps less obvious are the potential costs of Quality failures and the impact they can have on the environment, a company brand, and human lives.

Graphic of the deepwater horizon polluting waters

On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon, an oil rig leased to BP Exploration & Production from Transocean for extracting oil from the Macondo well 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana, suffered a series of explosions caused by the uncontrolled flow and ignition of oil from the well onto the rig platform during exploratory drilling. Explosions, and the resulting inextinguishable fire, continued to rock the Deepwater Horizon for 36 hours, killing 11 … Read more...