Takata Airbag Quality Takata Corp the supplier behind defect

Takata Airbag Quality Takata Corp., the supplier behind defective air bags in millions of recalled vehicles, lacks clear processes for tackling potential safety defects and needs improved manufacturing methods, an independent panel found. Takata employees tasked with raising safety concerns also don’t have well-defined roles and rely on reports from auto makers about quality problems instead of ferreting out problems themselves. In addition, Takata often has employees load air-bag-inflater propellants by hand and lacks enough automated manufacturing processes that can better ensure consistent products, the report found. Takata’s CEO said the company planned to implement all of the panel’s recommendations. “Takata’s products play a critical role in protecting the driving public, and we understand that the quality of our operations needs to be beyond question,” he said. Car companies are recalling more than 24 million vehicles in the U.S. equipped with the air bags, which can explode and spray shrapnel. Regulators also cited Takata for misleading and inaccurate testing reports. “I don’t think they lived it and breathed it the way other people do,” noted the report’s author in The Wall Street Journal (Feb. 2, 2016). The report outlined a series of recommendations to improve Takata’s approach to quality, and suggested employees working on quality be able to not only intervene in manufacturing, but stop product designs when raising concerns. The report concluded: (1) Testing data must be recorded and reported accurately; (2) Takata should develop its own standards for air-bag-inflater testing as opposed to relying on specifications from auto makers, regulators and others; (3) employees should be paid based on how the address quality issues to incentivize reporting concerns; and (4) Takata should create a dedicated quality team to implement the recommendations. Discuss the weaknesses in Takata’s quality program and present how they can do to improve their quality performance. (Using less than 150 words)

Solution

Defective manufacturing processes, a very inappropriate and a very unstable chemical, manipulated test reports, and flawed quality control processes, misleading lab reports, overseeing defects, are among the problems that plagued Tataka and this led to the enormous recall of its products. As Tataka grapples with the cost of the product recalls and product replacements, the automakers with whom they previously worked are staying away from its products. This created a huge downbeat to the airbag maker. The certain quality issues that automakers are facing due to airbags is creating an uproar.

Tataka needs to improve on four broad categories -

There are ways to improve their quality performance. Some of them are -

1) Starting with the design and manufacturing part, the manufacturing of the products should take place in a very highly conducive environment under a strict quality and maintenance personnel.

2) Ensuring that the manufacturing processes undergo a strict vigilance

3) Improving organization\'s quality culture.

4) Monitoring the quality of airbags after the manufacturing process and close quality check before sending them to the customer

5) Ensuring high safety standards by critically examining the safety aspects of the Tataka\'s operations, and ensuring that the filling of the chemicals are done by machine and not manually.

6) Ensuring that a dedicated quality team should be specifically tasked on monitoring the product once it is in the fleet.