KrisW said:
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Sorry, that doesn't wash. You're advocating a system where there's zero trust, and everything has to be re-checked in detail. That's great, if you want to pay $60,000 for your basic car. Suppliers are contracted to deliver a defect-free component, and need to show that they have adequate quality processes in place to deliver this. Periodically, incoming parts are checked to ensure compliance, and the finished products are examined for defects regularly, but part-to-part, the supplier is trusted to have delivered what was requested.
Where problems are found, you take action to stop the problem continuing, and then, where necessary, apply remedial measures to what you've made already. You do not try to predict random, edge-case problems: that is a waste of time and energy in your process. What idiot would have asked line workers to shake each airbag assembly for a couple of seconds to listen for loose bolts that might be in there.. from the very first part onwards? If you knew from the start that there
might be loose bolts, you get hold of the supplier and you make sure with them that there
won't be loose bolts.
The Ford example is bogus: Ford was aware high failure rate of Firestone tires - there had been complaints for two years from its own dealer network, and in the wider industry. Nonetheless, Ford continued shipping those tires, rather than calling in Firestone to explain themselves, fix the problem, and replace the defective parts in the field. Unlike the Takata issue, or this FCA one, customers could sue either Firestone or Ford, because they were also able to buy those tires directly from Firestone, as well has having them pre-fitted by Ford in the factory.
In this case, FCA discovered one instance of a problem, called in the supplier, found that there was a chance of it being more than a once-off, and issued the recall immediately. That is the correct response.
We need to stop thinking that the initial problem is the important problem; it almost never is. Where companies make their biggest mistakes is in their response to the initial problem. In this case, FCA's response to discovering a problem has been 100% correct: determine the cause of failure, apply measures to eliminate it at source; apply a fix to previously-produced products.Click to expand...
That is a very long post that does nothing to address the two points I brought up, nor did I say for FCA to inspect every incoming part:
1) FCA selected the vendor.
2) FCA would have been in the chain of liability had this caused an injury or death. Thankfully it has not.
And I’ll add one:
3) The vendor needs to improve its process.
It doesn't matter what FCA's response is. If someone was injured or killed FCA would have been in the chain of liability and would have faced a barrage of bad press. Blaming it on the vendor (which is appropriate in this case) DOES NOT absolve FCA of liability.