Product Quality Increased at Toyota by Implementing ATS Inspect
Purpose
Toyota needed a solution to raise the number of vehicles being manufactured without defects (Straight Through Ratio). They wanted to achieve this by:
- Recording and reporting every single defect in real time.
- Immediately informing Quality Managers when serious issues need to be addressed.
- Displaying KPIs on the plant floor.
They were able to achieve this with ATS Inspect.
Solution Approach
ATS Inspect was implemented in several vehicle inspection cells including drum test, wheel alignment, shower and customer satisfaction. The solution included the following main elements:
- Quality operators inspect the vehicle and record any defects found in ATS Inspect using a touch screen. This is a paper-less data collection system.
- A large wall projector in the assembly control room provides real time feedback.
- Quality Managers are alerted by email when serious issues arise.
- Any vehicle with defects that cannot be repaired in the inspection station is moved to the Hanedashi area (repair area).
Systems & Tools
- ATS Inspect
The Results
A key benefit of ATS Inspect is its ability to feedback information to operators and management alike in real time. This means that management can review the defect trends and prioritize resources accordingly while the operators can drill-down into the information to see exactly where problems are occurring, allowing them to react immediately to any issues.
Toyota won the Manufacturer of the Year Award at this manufacturing plant as a direct result of using ATS Inspect for one and a half years.
The graph below shows the number of defects found over time after implementing ATS Inspect at Toyota. The first major change was that they were able to identify, record and collate many more defects than they had previously. Using the analysis tools within ATS Inspect they were then able to identify and address the root causes which lead to a dramatic fall in the number of defects.
