"Recently, a large multi-national manufacturing company servicing automotive, aerospace, industrial and aftermarket, approached The PIC Group with a challenge. They asked us why, if all of their plants and suppliers were registered to international quality standards, they still could not produce quality products and services on a consistent basis.

Unfortunately, many Registrars do not focus on the effectiveness of quality management systems when auditing their customers. If systems are documented and implemented, the organizations pass their audits. We met with the multi-national company and reviewed the metrics that they had in place to monitor their suppliers and corporate plants; and yes, the numbers painted a rather dismal picture. Using our 20 plus years of troubleshooting experience, we created a special assessment for this company that could be used to audit these facilities based on the measurables.

We called this a Metrics Based System Assessment. The assessment focused on evidence that systems were effective or not, and if not, why? We decided that we would begin with product and process design, followed by product launch. From there we investigated the systems for supplier control, process control, maintenance, training, gauge control, packaging and labeling and continual improvement. We not only looked at the data, but interviewed a large percentage of personnel to determine if the systems were truly known and understood.

Now it was time to put our assessment to work. However, instead of the usual arrangement, where the Consultant executes the audit and reports their findings back to the customer, we were asked to take different teams of employees from the Corporate offices of the multi-national and during each audit, train their staff in the use of the Metrics Based System Assessment. At the conclusion of five company audits and five supplier audits, not only did we train over 30 people in how to use the assessment, but were able to take all of the results and create an analysis of the discrepancies in order to determine if there were any similarities. Guess what? There were.

It was determined during the final report out, that the corporate office themselves contributed to some of the plant problems and the plants weren’t innocent when it came to the suppliers. The report out allowed the company to put together both short and long term plans to improve their corporate systems, plant systems, and supplier development systems. In addition, they now had a qualified, self-sufficient group of auditors to use throughout the remainder of their organization. Corporate won. The plants won. The suppliers won. The new auditors won. The PIC Group won; another satisfied customer. Another challenge met."


Robert W. Muir - The PIC Group  
Manager of Consulting & Product Development
www.thepicgroup.com/training/