Pass Through Characteristics 2005-01-4077

This “Paper” shows to the reader some experiences and methodologies used by the Visteon team to solve difficulties that were found in the productive process, and to give some proposes to improve the customer quality performance as well. This methodology is used according to the significant characteristics used by the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) but “tear1” not to controlling it.

It is called “Pass through Characteristics”, functional components characteristics that are not used by the supplier “tear1” during their process but they are used by the OEM, so if there are quality issues from the supplier “tear2”, they will only be detected on the OEM.

Some companies have reduced significantly their structure by reviewing internal process, reducing the number of employees to get some tasks as cost reduction requirement. Actually, some companies are using it as management strategies and alternative methods to be competitive in the market. However, some actions like that are affecting the quality performance of the products manufactured by them. The incoming inspection is one of the most affected areas by this situation according to the supplier “tear2” quality assurance concept. Nevertheless, this concept does not happen. The team has been observed that some suppliers that should be having their process quality under control don't have it. This might cause some quality issues on the final product. If these are detected during the “tear1” process, they are solved according to internal procedures and considered low severity; however the worst problem comes to when there are issues according to Pass Through Characteristics, because, as mentioned before, these issues will only be detected by the OEM.

The incoming inspection area is responsible for visual components inspections identifying potential or quality issues that have come from suppliers “tear2”.

The concept of quality assurance is valid, in order not to have necessity of the incoming inspection by the “tear1”.

In fact when the supplier has quality assurance, the components will be sent direct to the process because when they have been delivered it's supposed that it was made with high confidence level. On the other hand this process really happens when the suppliers get the knowledge about what are the most important variables to control, such as the inputs, outputs and the significant items to the customer. As additional item they have to understand how important it is to be applied.

Trying to get more knowledge from the productive chain [Supplier (tear2) - Visteon (tear1) - FORD (OEM)], the team had developed this project to obtain a new overall knowledge about the quality assurance and to improve the confidence level about it. The idea was joining the significant elements to improve all supply chain efficiency. At this moment the team worked together with our customers and suppliers as teamwork, the results and the experiences exchanges had been fantastic.

In fact if all the productive chain has the same challenge and tasks, certainly the team will have the success; increasing the confidence level and the total customer satisfaction of the final product as well.