Total Quality Management

Assignment – 1

Quality Practices of Honda

Submitted by,

Waseem Akram

1PH12MBA52

Honda is a Japanese multinational corporation incorporated in 1948, popularly known for

manufacture of automobiles and motorcycles. It is also the largest motorcycle manufacturer in

the world, serving over a million customers every year. Serving that enormous number of

customers requires tremendous and continuous dedication towards improving the quality of their

products. Honda is well known for its high quality products worldwide and it does so by

indulging in R&D and implementing a series of quality management and improvement practices.

The following are the quality practices followed by Honda:

Aiming for 120% quality: Honda firmly believes that achieving 99% quality is good but

the 1% customers would consider their product defective and that would hamper the

reputation of Honda. Therefore Honda doesn’t let even a single customer go dissatisfied

and it does so by aiming at 120% quality. This ensures customer focus.

Implementing global Honda quality standards: to address the need to attain 120%

quality Honda established the Global Honda quality standards (G-HQS) throughout the

world based on ISO 9001 and ISO/TS 16949 quality standards. As of March 2012 all of

Honda’s production facilities achieved these quality standards.

ISO 9001: An international quality control and quality assurance standard.

ISO/TS16949: An international quality management system standard for the automotive

industry

They are based on 8 quality core principles:

Customer focus

Leadership

Involvement of people

Process approach

System approach to management

Continual improvement

Factual approach to decision making

Mutually beneficial supplier relationship

Honda’s Quality cycle: The process begins with designing and developing expertise to

collection of quality related data to further enhance the quality.

Design and development : Honda implements quality assurance from the drawing

stage by utilizing the design and manufacturing expertise to create drawings

designed to facilitate manufacturing.

Production preparation : Honda prepares for quality assurance through production

processes by building manufacturing control techniques that limit process

variability.

Production: In addition to using drawings designed to facilitate manufacturing and

practicing manufacturing control techniques that limit process variability, Honda

conducts a rigorous inspections of part and finished vehicle and take steps to

assure no damage occurs during transport

Sales and after sales service : products quality issues after sales are dealt with by

dealerships, which collect quality related data from customers in a timely manner.

Collection of quality related data, consolidated analysis and quality enhancement

measures: Honda collects and analyzes quality related data from customers and

markets worldwide and strive to enhance quality in a prompt manner.

1. Design and development

2. production preparation

3. production4. sales and after sales

service

5. collection of quality

related data

System to enhance products quality: Honda has established a Quality Center to bring

together the various components of the organization concerned with products quality

data, allowing them to enhance its worldwide ability to both prevent quality issues and

quickly detect and resolve them when they occur. The facility gathers quality-related data

from dealers in Japan and overseas through service departments and the Customer

Relations Center. Measures and policies for preventing quality issues are then developed

based on the issues identified from this data and provided as feedback to R&D and

production departments responsible for operations including product design,

manufacture, and part supplier relations.

When a quality issue does occur, Honda moves quickly to resolve it, for example by

working closely with R&D and production departments to investigate and address the

cause, dealing with affected customers, and taking action to prevent a recurrence.

Handling quality issues: when any issue arises that needs quick action, Honda quickly

reports the issue to governmental authorities in accordance with individual countries'

regulations and contact owners by means of direct mail from dealers or by telephone to

provide information about how they can receive free repairs. Associated information is

also provided on Honda's website and through the news media as necessary.

A Global Quality Committee is quickly convened in accordance with Honda

global rules, and decisions concerning market measures are made by its chairperson in

consultation with overseas members including experts from departments involved with

quality issues who are capable of making objective decisions.

Implementing quality management education: In Japan, Honda offers a training

curriculum divided into four courses according to in-house qualifications and the extent

of individual workers' quality control responsibilities in order to improve associates'

quality assurance skills.

The Honda QC Basic Course (HBC), which was first offered in 1971, provides an

example of how Honda is working to train its personnel to be leaders in improving

quality, for example by opening the course to suppliers in addition to associates. Similar

curricula for providing necessary training have been put in place at overseas production

facilities.

Aggressively ensuring quality in both design and manufacturing: To ensure highest

quality Honda conducts quality assurance activities in both design as well as

manufacturing perspective. The process includes:

Assuring quality through drawings : the Research a& development department at

Honda is responsible for creating drawings which help is maximum ease of

manufacturing vehicles and also reduce process variability and prevent human

error during manufacturing process. These drawings help assure the quality. The

Engineers responsible in creating these drawings also closely communicate with

the manufacturing department and utilize the database during the initial

development stage in order to prevent past quality issues.

Assuring quality through production process : At Honda each part, process and

task is controlled and quality standard are applied to prevent quality issues

Furthermore, Honda develops processes limiting variability by soliciting

suggestions for enhancement from the sites where work is actually performed and

determining manufacturing control methods for each process.

Assuring part quality through supplier audit: In developing high quality products,

quality of each part produced is important, to ensure this Honda visits its

supplier’s manufacturing facilities to conduct quality audits based on 3 reality

principles emphasizing “going to the actual place, knowing the actual situation

and being realistic” to further improve the quality Honda shares the audit results

with its suppliers to help them discover measures for improving quality.

Assuring long-term reliability through aggressive durability testing: Before

beginning with the mass production, Honda puts its vehicles to high durability

and endurance test to ensure there are no quality issues, it also assembles the

vehicles from test drive to verify all the parts for quality issues if any.

Using 2 nd generation line end testers (LETs) to inspect electronic control systems:

Honda has installed line end testers (LETs), an inspection and diagnostic system

developed in-house, at production plants in Japan and overseas. To achieve more

environmentally friendly designs and improving driver and passenger

convenience and comfort Honda also uses electronic control systems.