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Quote:

Political labels usually gets tossed around when a person can't defend their own position. Its kind of the easy way out.

I'm no paragon of virtue, but I wish people would lighten up a bit here. Surely we can have a little spirited debate without a tiff between respected members or one of them leaving in a huff.

While it's understandable that some are still a little tense after a recent situation, it's a damned shame if it has caused a line to be drawn between people who have otherwise been able to get along. Personally, I thought this was a nice neutral spot where people could talk shop, regardless of their personal preferences for clubs, politics, etc.

In any event, it's one thing to post a thought-provoking question or statement and for people to be tolerant, but let's not provoke one and other into a fight.

Yet, with over 40 messages in and out of my e-mail box last week because some people can't get along, maybe I should just pick up my marbles and keep my Packard interests to myself.

Steve Wozniak, the Co-founder of Apple is able to duplicate the Acceleration problem in his new 2010 Toyota Prius.

He says "It's very scary".

"Toyota has this accelerator problem we've all heard about [...]

I have many models of Prius that got recalled, but I have a new model that didn't get recalled. This new model has an accelerator that goes wild but only under certain conditions of cruise control. And I can repeat it over and over and over again--safely."


Now there's someone you don't want to tick off with a software problem!

Call me nuts, but has anyone considered this Toyota thing as maybe an inside job? A bad line of code placed by a previously disgruntled employee? Somehow I just cannot fathom its a total error. I could if the throttle was mechanical, but they're all fly by wire now.

Toyota has not become the largest American car manufacturer by taking risks, or by accident. they have.made consistent "safe" choices with models and yearly improvements. Just take a quick scan of their line up and you'll find nothing exciting. not a single car invokes any feeling of emotion except knowing there's a warrenty behind the contract.

But in thinking, I can't.think of any other manufacturer that's exciting nowadays. So I guess we're screwed on our new cars.

Brian, you bring up an interesting situation with Chrysler/Iacocca and Crosby. I read his book, the company I worked for in the early 80s handed them out to the employees. I actually read it, and agreed with much of what he said. Unfortunately quality and zero defects is something Amerian management likes the idea of, unitl it costs money or slows down the line, which no one can stand for. Your comments about Chrysler needing (then) a complete management change-out if they intended on living this is absolutely true. There is a real "slam it together" culture in Chrysler plants, Walt made his name in the auto industry taking Buick from a carriage shop to a production powerhouse, he was doing this while Henry Ford was still trying to find gentile bankers to loan money to him, and much of the Ford Highland park's production organization was pioneered by Walt, and many others, it was just taken to a scale unheard of before by Ford.
Crosby asserts that they guys on the floor assembing your product know good from bad, they know when parts don't work together and managers have to listen to this. There's a big problem there, obviously.
In the end, it pretty much resulted in some nice banners being made and hung in our shop, and that's about all, anything that constituted real quality just took more time than the company wanted to commit to, designs that would have to be reworked (time=money, always).
When I called on plants where our equipment was installed I noticed that GM plants had lots of "right way, wrong way" posters with very clear line drawings of how a main cap should be installed on an engine.
Ford had, at that time (early 90s) the most impressive set-up. They took SPC very seriously. One location We had an installation at was the plant in Belleview MI that manufactured alternators, it went Visteon and I think is closed now. They had a line where the alternators came together, there were 19 steps in a circular line, beginning with pressing bearings into machined housings, and on down the line until the finished product was stacked on pallets at the next station at the end of the line. off to the side was the QC station for that line, a QC inspector was metering samples, measuring shaft end play, running alernators on a test stand to measure and record their output, and so on. The had histrograms of their faults,
and were "walking the walk". The thing I was most impressed to learn there was that the QC guy was one of the workes from that line--that day. On a 19 man line they had 20 employees assigned. Every 20th day YOU became the QC guy, they all did QC in rotation. This ended the "them vs us" mentality, and gave each employee a hand in the process, the problems and the solutions.
Chrysler had some nice machines, but a lot of it was dog and pony show.

The side bar conversation on the Toyota quality issues and other automotive related issues are fine with me, but lets please leave out the personal jabs to one another, it's very unbecoming and adds nothing to the conversation.

Now I will take off my proctor hat and try to go warm up as it's freezing here in Princeton, NJ!

John (Pushbutton) -

I never read Crosby's book; all we got a was a QIP binder/workbook. I thought most of the principles he was touting should have been realized as common sense, but try to get a room full of people to agree on anything. Yet, I'm not so much disagreeing with his principles as much as the time and money Chrysler wasted on that deal and trying to implement them. Mostly it was an exercise in lip service, in a culture where too much ring-kissing prevailed.

As a Service & Parts DM, a lot of my time was consumed in dealing with too much junk that Sales DM's kept peddling to dealers. Neither Service nor Sales personnel in the field were in much of a position to affect quality, except for the ability to fire off, on occasion, a product quality report (which should have been provided for dealers to complete at-will - as Packard did decades before).

Yet, would you believe that in conversation I had with management from a plant, who/which shall remain nameless, they begged me to call them with any such problems - that they NEVER got to see those quality reports that we had submitted??? It's true! Perhaps they only ever got as far as Service Engineering.

Now, I'm not saying that all assembly line workers are angels, but as a group they get a lot of undue flack for quality issues when all they can do is assemble what comes down the line at them. Most of the problems go back to engineering and management, but it seems like too many of those people were made of Teflon.

I don't miss those days at all.

BH writes:
"Now, I'm not saying that all assembly line workers are angels, but as a group they get a lot of undue flack for quality issues when all they can do is assemble what comes down the line at them. Most of the problems go back to engineering and management, but it seems like too many of those people were made of Teflon."

THat statement is the most intelligent analysis made thus far. Probably the only intellegent statement made thus far. Especially the last sentence.

In 1982 I read "the decline and fall of the American automobile industry" by Brock Yates. He had one simple change that could have had a positive impact to the industry: eliminate the executive/management/tier workers car perks through the company, still give them sweethart deals on cars, but they must go through a dealership to get the car and have it serviced. Eliminate the garages that service executive cars, that are staffed with the best trained and equipped mechanics, that situation needs to exsist at every dealership.
The logic os this is that Joe car buyer in Dubuqe IA does not see GM as the shining building on the Detroit River or the tech center in Warren, they see it as the dealership on their corner. The people most able to change how that vehicle is made, and how the dealer behaves does not have to go through a dealer, they get their vehicles through the company, and many times they get company gas in the tanks, further insulating them from the hard realities. It's pretty common too for folks on this gravy train to get a brand-spankin' new car every year, two at the max, so the knowledge and concern as to how the vehicle holds up after warrenty is a non-concern to them. When I was with Chrysler I sensed a culture that in essence said "if you can't get a new car every two years you must be some kind of loser or weirdo"
I'm suprised the Gub-ment hasn't figured this out and barked orders. Then again, I'm not.

Keith -

I know you've worked in the thick of that jungle in years past.

So, know that I take your post comment as an "Amen, Brutha!"