Situation
Automotive manufacturing parts suppliers are expected to meet or exceed the quality standards established by their customers. They are often challenged with staying aligned with the most recent standards. Attrition also creates an additional challenge to elevate new people to the standards. While there are generic quality concepts, each manufacturer has unique quality requirements and processes that their supply base must understand.
Training OEM suppliers to meet or exceed quality standards and comply with OEM-specific processes related to quality and capacity.
Challenge
A major North American auto manufacturer needed to provide up-to-date, focused, and consistent quality training to its supply base. Internal quality engineers were already overtasked and had no availability. At the same time, they knew proper training of the supply base would help improve quality, which was critical in today’s market.
Solution
GP Strategies has a long-standing relationship with this OEM, providing support in many areas, including quality training for their supplier quality engineers. We worked collaboratively with their SMEs to develop a curriculum for supplier personnel who were new to the OEM processes, or who were involved with current model quality. Through interactive workshops, facilitated by TTi Global, A Division of GP Strategies’ SMEs, supplier personnel learn topics such as FMEA, APQP, PPAP, MSA, control plans, and problemsolving. Suppliers enroll for classes through the OEM’s online portal and attend classes at their learning center. Workshops are scheduled once every quarter. To deliver these workshops, TTi Global provides certified quality instructors, with deep experience in the OEM’s standards and processes.
Results
Over the past seven years, well over one thousand supplier personnel have been trained.
Key benefits include:
- Consistent delivery of instruction
- Topics updated rapidly to align with changes to standards and processes
- Instruction and examples are real world and align with specifics of OEM
- Level one and level two evaluations demonstrate a high level of student satisfaction and learning gain
- Curriculum is frequently refreshed to reflect changes in OEM requirements
- Flexibility to deliver in multiple countries
