Lean Quality, a methodology developed by Attensity, is gaining acceptance among automotive industry analysts, research institutions and quality experts.

The Lean Quality methodology promises to deliver increased insight into the quality chain, driving quality improvement, reducing warranty expenses and boosting customer satisfaction.

Among the early supporters of Lean Quality are representatives from leading industry organizations such as AMR Research, the American Society for Quality--Automotive Division and the Automotive Industry Action Group. "Lean Quality is likely to revolutionize the quality industry in the same way that lean manufacturing has permanently altered manufacturing processes," says Kevin Mixer, an automotive analyst with AMR Research. "Automotive manufacturers should strongly consider embracing this new methodology as a way to improve quality processes and compress root-cause cycle times."

Similar to lean manufacturing, Lean Quality urges automotive manufacturers to move from batch analysis to a problem flow approach, eliminating bottlenecks and ensuring that quality issues can be quickly and properly identified, prioritized and routed to the appropriate point of responsibility. As part of this methodology, Lean Quality calls for the systematic capture and analysis of text-based information describing quality problems along with conventional coded data--allowing manufacturers to adopt a problem description orientation rather than the traditional problem code orientation to describe failures that result in warranty claims.

Part and service codes have been a source of ongoing difficulties for many manufacturers, as coding processes vary across the industry, and the codes themselves inaccurately represent product performance problems. Multiple codes often describe a common problem, and a single code often describes multiple problems, which can dilute problems and lead to improper prioritization. By augmenting these codes with text-based information sources, manufacturers can spot problem trends earlier, gain better insight into existing problems and route problems more efficiently to constituents well-positioned to take action. This approach augments existing business processes that are already utilized in the automotive industry.

"AIAG is working to develop a new approach for early warning to benefit the entire automotive industry, particularly in response to the TREAD legislation," says Andrew Cummins, executive director of AIAG. "We see Lean Quality as helping to provide a more accurate and detailed understanding of problems, which supports our early warning initiative."

Attensity Corp. provides advanced data analysis software to commercial enterprises and government agencies. Attensity’s solutions join structured and unstructured data, enabling organizations to perform analytics that speed response to critical events and issues. For more information, click here.