Question

Case 9.3 Airbag Adversity

Insufficient quality management during product development, launch, and production can lead to subsequent costly projects and programs to rectify problems. This is especially true when safety-critical items are involved. The 2015 global recall of a large variety of automobile makes, which affected millions of owners, is such as case. The massive recall was related to potentially defective airbags used by auto manufacturers following reports that the airbags had inflators that could explode and expel metal and plastic shards into vehicle occupants. The airbags were supplied by Takata Corporation of Japan, the second largest global supplier of airbags and seatbelts. A New York Times report found a total of at least 139 reported injuries across all automakers; in Honda vehicles alone, at least two deaths and 30 injuries were reported.

When the fault was first announced in 2013 only six makes were involved, but by 2015 a large range of makes and 34 million vehicles in the USA alone were potentially affected. It was said that Takata was ramping up to produce replacements at the rate of 10 million per year. Initiallyit was thought that propellant chemicals were mishandled and improperly stored during assembly, which might cause the metal inflators to explode due to extreme internal pressure. Later, humid weather was thought to have played a role as well. Takata cited other possible contributors, including rust, bad welds, and in at least one case chewing gum dropped into an inflator. Documents showed that in 2002 Takata’s plant in Mexico allowed a defect rate that was “six to eight times above” the acceptable limit, or roughly 60 to 80 defective parts for every 1 million airbag inflators shipped.

Questions

1-Explain the role of classification of characteristics in reducing costs of ensuring quality.

2-Discuss why any pressure to rush or cut costs on the development of safety critical items should be resisted. List specific costs incurred by recall programs to withdraw vehicles from use; include costs for (a) loss of automaker or Takata reputation and future sales, (b) litigation between automakers and Takata and (c) law suits resulting from people killed and injured.

3-Discuss specific procedures and steps in the design and manufacturing processes for safety-critical components and systems, and how they should differ from procedures and quality management steps for noncritical items. What specific techniques and procedures would you recommend for the design and manufacture of such safety-critical items?

4-Specifications often state that a certain incident or event should not occur more than, say, once in 1 million or once in 10 million times. Explain why tests to ensure such a requirement are difficult and costly.

Nicholas, John M.; Steyn, Herman. Project Management for Engineering, Business and Technology (p. 344). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

Answer 1

1) Role of classification of characteristics in reducing costs of ensuring quality:

Ans: The following categories are used as a baseline for defining product (Airbags) categories.

The description below for Critical is based on the potential for injury or harm to the end user.

This definition considers that our product (Airbags) is likely to result in some sort of injury

Category	Description
Critical	A feature whose failure would result in a hazardous or harmful situation for the end user.
Major	A feature whose failure would result in a major reduction in quality (performance, functionality or reliability), but would not likely result in a hazardous situation for your customer.
Minor	A feature whose failure would be noticed by the end user but would not significantly impact the users experience (safety, quality, etc).
Incidental	A feature whose failure might go unnoticed by the end user and would not impact safety, quality, performance, functionality, etc.

As one move through the design process, one will want to focus his attention on the critical features that result in the satisfaction of customers. In above case, airbags had inflators that could explode and expel metal and plastic shards into vehicle occupants. This is hence a critical feature that is hazardous to the customer and the manufacturer of vehicle need to focus his attention on this critical feature that will result in customer satisfaction.

Other critical features as evident from case are: a) propellant chemicals were mishandled and improperly stored during assembly, which might cause the metal inflators to explode due to extreme internal pressure. b) humid weather was thought to have played a role as well. c) Takata cited other possible contributors, including rust, bad welds, and in at least one case chewing gum dropped into an inflator.

By focusing on all the above critical features during designing process, process implementation and manufacturing of car it will ensure that there is no recall for defects related to critical features and hence it will reduce cost of ensuring quality.

This is the role of classification of characteristics in reducing costs of ensuring quality.