General Motors
Cutting brake fluid fill faults on the production line by 50%
Chassis section manager
- Root Cause Analysis
- Process Improvement
While managing the chassis section of the General Motors production line, I oversaw a quality-based project to reduce the number of cars that needed repair at the end of the line for not having their brake lines installed properly.
Challenge
Brake lines on modern cars are complicated on an engineering level. They span the entire length of the car, so many different teams on the production line install different parts. It was a significant challenge to track exactly where the issue was coming from, and to work effectively with over ten production teams of fifteen people each to solve the problem.
Result
By using the 5 Whys process to root-cause the problem, I tracked it to specific joints on the brake line. Countermeasures were put in place, such as altering the configuration of parts when they arrived at the factory, and I reduced brake fluid fill faults at the factory by 50%.