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Originally Posted by sanchari The niggles that many customers complain about in Tata cars is what indicates the "chalta hai" and QC issues at TML. After spending lakhs on a car, one wants peace of mind, not niggles which lead to multiple trip to A.S.S centers.
The market share of TML is declining in the passenger segment. While it may contribute just 10-20% of TML revenues, the bigger problem is the perception people have of TML making low quality cars. The big three US companies had similar perception till a decade back, when Japanese cars were considered to be of better quality than Ford/GM/Chrysler. And one would get better resale value for japanese cars compared to the US ones. It took a long time for the US companies to overcome those perceptions. I hope TML doesn't end up in the same boat.
One interesting strategy adopted by the Korean automakers(Kia/Hyundai) in US to overcome the perceptions of low quality was to offer 10 year/100,000 mile warranty on their engines and transmission. They were pretty confident of their QC and hence could make such a guarantee.
The market share is Tata's to lose. With the overall quality of cars going up, and the competition heating up, Tata needs to work hard to clear the perceptions of low quality. If it doesn't work hard on it now, it may be too late few years down the line. |
It is mainly a matter of company culture that determines the product quality. I remember a major argument I had, sometime in 2010, with the QC head of their CVBU Gear Box plant. Rather than accept that the components were being produced out of spec he was trying to see if the acceptance gauges, supplied by us & validated by their experts, could be ground down so that it would accept the not ok components...mind you this was the qc head. He was more interested in his Incentive that was tied to the no of products productionised, rather than their quality.
Compare this to a situation in 1980. I was a trainee Engineer (1.5 months into training) in the Engines testing QC. I was doing a double General & 2nd. shift as there were a lot of problems in despatch. Mr. M was the plant head and had given instructions that certain field complaints had been traced back to engine sump paint quality.He specifically had instructed us, thru dept. head, to ensure proper painting before despatch of engines to Vehicle Assly. We worked out the procedure with production & things were going smoothly. Suddenly around dinner time the Sr. manager Production (Mr. P) stormed into the testing area and insisted that the time for painting was too much (which it was not) and that he would not allow it. So I refused to clear engines for despatch. Shut down the assly line for over 4 hours. All AGMs & Mgrs were running helter skelter. Mr. P even threatened to beat me to which I countered that I would have in in police lockup the next morning for assault. And all the workers ( who normally hate QC) sided with me as they hated him more. He was a chamcha of the AGM Prod. and everybody twisted their knives in him that night. ("Hit Him" was the universal support & advise I got). Anyways by midnight they had to relent & start painting the engines as required. Next morning I was called up by the HOD of QC and thanked for doing a good job!! In those days TELCO, as it was then known, managed to assemble only 30-35 trucks per day and to loose almost a whole shift's production was a big issue. But no repurcussions fell on me as I was well within my rights to stop despatch. In the good old days of TML even a trainee engineer could stop the line for QC issues (I did) and nothing adverse would happen to him. The Japanese philosophy well before it became fashionable worldwide.!!
Later on, when the professional managers took over, and the AGM Production became plant head he appointed Mr. P as HOD QC.
. The guy ran riot and did all the compromises so that the new Plant head could make money on the side & also show short term profit at the same time. Quality suffered - it was so bad at one time that you had to pay money to get your goods supply unloaded at the stores.
Ratan Tata had a tough time gaining control and sidelining these assorted elements. Now he again seems to have relinquished control to a smoother set of operators.
I have seen the component level drawings of all their major components of their vehicles. I had a complete set of drawings of the Cyl Block & Head of the NANO 1 year before its launch. Their products are well designed as they are based on German designs. Specs. are also tight. What is hurting them is their maniacal obsession with lowering costs (what is immediately visible) without a well thought out strategy. So the vendors selected have dubious capabilities and lousy machinery. The only target is 10% price reduction every year. There are smarter ways of doing this, but it calls for a lot of time, effort & upfront investment in the vendor's capabilities & machinery.
For example a classical case - Alternator Mounting Bracket.
Wonder why all Indica fan belts screech - the brackets are manufactured on General Purpose machines & due to this the process capability for perpendicularity of 2 mounting holes is not good. So it becomes the end buyer's potluck. I designed 9 fixtures for this process. I knew the shortcomings of the process and the fixtures and desperately tried to convince them to shift to VMC(vertical machining centre) process. The capital costs of manufacturing the 9 fixtures would have served as a hefty capital subsidy for 2 VMC machines with 4th. Axis. per piece rate would have been lower & quality higher. But their ancillary dev. Dept. refused as they had a policy of vendors using only GPMs ( rajkot lathes, ludhiana milling & misc.).
Around the same time Toyota was developing some components for the Qualis. For one engine mounting bracket, that I was involved with, they specified VMC operation for bolt clearance holes with process capability & quality plan. No wonder their vehicles are better.
Hell!! I had a soft corner for TML as I started my career there and a learned a lot in the 3 years I was with them. I remember,as a design vendor in 2006, fighting up the chain to highlight a problem in one of their exhaust manifolds. Wall thickness near the mounting flange was a problem and it would have lead to field failures due to cracking of the hot gases passage.Even though the program manager understood the problems he was reluctant to take action as the project would get delayed. ( And he would loose his incentive- boy what damage a badly designed scheme can cause!!
) Fortunately the 2nd in command in charge of ERC engines happened to be walking by while I was protesting loudly & recognised me from my Engine testing days. He stopped, took one look at my point and put the engine on hold. It turned out everybody in the design team was aware of the problem but were afraid to bell the cat. It took them 1 full year to rectify the problem & revalidate the engine performance with the new manifold.
Most of the new product developments get done in this slipshod manner. Mr. Sumantaran was trying to break this approach. It immediately pushed back a lot of launches but would have improved their product quality substantially. So he & Forster have been eased out. NO surprises.
So that is why you do not buy a TATA vehicle immediately after it is launched. Wait for a couple of years and the bugs surface, most get sorted out and you have a stable but niggly product.
Nowadays they are gradually shifting some components to CNC machining processes, but the rates they pay are so low that their vendors use very old machines and process capabilities suffers.
Compare this with the turnaround Maruthi did in the Mid 1990's. Specified strict process capabilities, QC plan and even dictated the machines to be used. Paid better rates so that ROIs were attractive. So quality improved dramatically.
Nowadays I have stopped caring about TML as I feel I have done more than my fair share, mostly unpaid, of trying to help.
All manufacturer's go through these phases. Some learn from their mistake & rectify. I remeber one case of Ford USA. They tried to save 1US$ on the cylinder head gasket. The purchase manager short cut the approval & testing process & got a hefty bonus. Later on they had to issue a recall for a large no. of engines and spent a few 100 million on that. They learnt the lesson & strengthened the approval process.