Chrysler quality in the 1980s! SQA, DOE, and an introduction from an engineer!
Feb 4, 2025
Engineer CudaPete takes you through some of the steps Chrysler Corporation took to dramatically improve quality through the 1980s in the first of a series of five videos... #manufacturing #quality #doe #taguchi #chrysler #mopar #1980s #motales
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0:06
hello and welcome to another episode of
0:09
motals I'm Dave's minion Cuda Pete and
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today will be the first in a series of
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five videos regarding a supply of parts
0:16
to the Chrysler Corporation in the mid1
0:18
1980s from the quality assurance
0:21
perspective a little bit of background
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about myself at the time I was an
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engineering student at the University of
0:27
Detroit and as part of the engineering
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curriculum called op was required I was
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fortunate enough and privileged to get a
0:33
job at the Chrysler Corporation I worked
0:36
as a supplier quality assurance
0:38
specialist in procurement and Supply
0:40
supplyer quality assurance powertrain
0:43
components group powertrain components
0:45
consisted of anything that really bolted
0:47
onto the engine excluding the engine
0:49
itself meaning the fuel system the
0:52
exhaust system cooling system all sorts
0:54
of tubes hoses pipes grommets and
0:57
gaskets and in this I was responsible
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for surveying outside suppliers to make
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sure they maintain consistent quality in
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the parts that they Supply to Chrysler
1:07
so our series is going to be broken down
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into five episodes the first today which
1:12
we'll start off with is
1:14
engineering so the first thing that we
1:17
have to remember is at at the time about
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2third of the parts of the car were
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outsourced meaning they were
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manufactured by an outside supplier
1:25
other than Chrysler Chrysler made
1:27
approximately onethird of the car so in
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order to do that we had to provide clear
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and specific specifications and drawings
1:35
to the suppliers to make sure they knew
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what was required so on the drawings
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there were some critical things that
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were called out the first was a shield
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this meant it was a government
1:45
regulation it usually concerns safety
1:48
emissions or noise and those absolutely
1:51
have to be complied with then the second
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was a diamond this was considered a
1:56
critical Dimension but not regulatory it
1:59
may be an AE asme or aisi specification
2:04
and it was important to the dimensional
2:06
functional parts of the car to make sure
2:09
that they work properly and then there
2:11
was the penar the penar indicated a
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Chrysler internal standard which was
2:16
also critical to the
2:17
part so as I said this information was
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provided to the suppliers so they knew
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what was expected of them now the parts
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could be one of three things the first
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was a blackbox item which meant this is
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already designed and developed it's an
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off-the-shelf part it already exists
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something like a spark plug a battery a
2:38
tire so the engineers would select one
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of these already existing items as a
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black box that would meet the
2:44
specifications and could be used on the
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car as is the second was in-house design
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but outside manufacturing meaning the
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design department at Chrysler would
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design the part but they would not build
2:57
it in house they would send it out to an
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alternate supplier to have it
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manufactured outside and the third type
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was outside designed and developed or
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what was known as oddbox this was using
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an outside supplier's expertise in a
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particular part and rely on them to
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design the part and manufacture it and
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it had to meet the specifications but a
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lot of the responsibility was put on the
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supplier in this case because they were
3:23
considered an expert in this area so all
3:26
this information was provided to
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suppliers in a package and then they
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would bid on it through the purchasing
3:32
department and then contracts would be
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established for the parts and then they
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would be manufactured once it was
3:37
determined if it was going to be a black
3:39
box an inside design or an outside
3:42
design then the engineers had to look at
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certain things to make sure they were
3:46
delivering a quality part and the first
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thing would be the FMEA failure mode
3:51
effect and Analysis and there was a
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manual for that in this manual it
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details how to go about doing an FMEA so
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what is that you take apart and you look
4:00
at it and you say what happens if it
4:02
fails maybe it's just a minor
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inconvenience performance is not as good
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or it's a cosmetic problem or it may be
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something more drastic such as a loss of
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a braking system or a stalling of the
4:14
car so they had to look at all the
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different aspects of what was possible
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what happens if this part fails and what
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is the impact of that failure and then
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obviously try to minimize that so that
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the part would not fail so that was
4:27
something that was important to look at
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but then how do you measure that how do
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you measure the success of your part A
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lot of people just look at well it looks
4:35
good it performs good but you really
4:37
need a metric on how to do that and how
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do you develop that metrics there was
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what we called design of experiments so
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design of experiments is a way of
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scientifically looking at a problem and
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developing a solution that has a
4:50
measurable result and that's usually
4:53
done through What's called the tamaguchi
4:54
method it gave a scientific approach to
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developing tolerances and specifications
5:00
and then at the end you had a metric
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where you could measure a result whether
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it was successful or not so this was
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another aspect of what was used during
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the uh design of the parts and then all
5:11
this information was provided to the
5:13
suppliers so that they knew what the
5:16
requirements were and then they could
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begin manufacturing the parts in our
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next part of the series we will start
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looking at what actually happened at the
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suppliers and supplier quality assurance
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so how those metrics were measured
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so if you did like this video be sure to
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like And subscribe and I thank you very
5:36
much for watching
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