When I went on a factory tour, I saw little evidence of accurate jigs and fixtures, gauges, inspection stations, and 'zero defect' devices. When I toured Kawasaki and Toyota factories, I saw constant evidence that they were continuously taking small steps to eliminate quality problems, and were very proud of that.
You arent seriously expecting the same sort of approach to quality from a tiny back street company like MMC and Toyota, one of the worlds biggest car makers?
yes I am indeed. Kawasaki and Toyota thrashed the British car and bike industries, not by investing in fancy plant, but by understanding all the little things that cost very little to fix. This happens to be my area of expertise. When I returned from training at Kawasaki, I did some work for a prominent furniture manufacturer. They had a six week lead time and a parts warehouse with £500,000 of component stocks, but with constant shortages. Using Kawasaki's methods we reduced the lead time to a week and completely eliminated the need for a parts warehouse. Part of this was sorting out the quality issues by making it easier to do things correctly. And the investment Cost? Virtually Zero.
At another large company making fitted kitchens we eliminated shortages and turned round every order in a week. MMC is easily big enough to adopt low-cost improvement techniques and maybe one day it will have to!
