Putting Automotive Parts On Sort: What is Good, What is Bad, and How to Avoid the Bad (Part II)

Now that we have defined the necessary concepts – see Part 1-, it is time to go to the very heart of the question.

Let us imagine the following situation: an OEM decides – according to the no fault philosophy – that a provider has had in a short period of time one or several quality problems, and that he does not trust his process checking methods; he “forces” his provider to put his parts on sort according to the flows displayed on the following picture.

Problem:

This decision triggers an awkward situation in which, on the one hand, the OEM (represented on the picture by the Supplier Quality Engineer) tells the TIER 1 which company will check his parts, but will also, on the other hand, manage the Sort Company staff. The only thing left to the TIER 1 is to pay the bills and try to improve his processes to make sure no NOK part will be produced.

What is Good in an On Sort Process:

It is true that in the TIER 1 plants, in some occasions, the process are not perfectly followed and the quality tends to decrease. The implementation of an on sort process forces everybody to react to improve the situation.

What is more, this will always generate an improvement in the quality of cars, which is, in the end, what consumers want.

What is Bad in an On Sort Process:

• Having an “over-quality” policy: the Sort Companies are paid to make sure that they will find all the NOK parts. As a consequence, if they are not sure whether a part is right or wrong, they will put it in the red box (wrong parts). In other occasions, some parts that would have been perfectly functional are classified as wrong just because of their aspect. And I could give you more examples.
• Extremely expensive costs for the Tier 1: the Tier 1 will have to pay not only the Sort Company operators work, but also the extra costs from the OEM, since implementing an on sort process means having internal logistic costs in its plants. Moreover, it increases the number of trips between the Tier 1 and the OEM, as the picture displays.

How to avoid the Bad:

Our experience tell us that it is “naïve” to think that the Tier 1 will be able to have the On Sort process removed quickly by working very well to correct a problematic process – without doing anything else -. The companies that thought that way have seen that the on sort processes lasted more than twice, or even three times longer than what they had thought. So, what should be done? Here is our recipe:

• 1) A good management of what is happening during the on sort process.
• 2) Periodical meetings between the Tier 1, the OEM and the “Sort Company”.
• 3) Training the on sort process operators to make correct measurements.
• 4) Make a second copy of a checking fixture used in the process. In that way the Tier 1 and the on sort process operators will measure and check the parts in the same way.