General Motors: Quality Management System

When you look at the history of General Motors, you will find a long, rich heritage. General Motors came into existence in 1908 when it was founded by William "Billy" Durant. At that time Buick Motor Company was a member of GM. over the years GM would acquire more than 20 companies, to include Opel, Chevrolet, Cadillac, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile. By the 1960's through 1979 was known as a revolution period for General Motors. Everyone was focusing on environmental concerns, increased prices of gasoline lead to the unprecedented downsizing of vehicles. The smaller cars lead to one the largest re-engineering program ever taken in the industry. By 1973, General Motors was the first to offer an air bag in a production car.

A storm was coming for

General Motors as Germany and Japan began importing vehicles into the Unites States. With the high fuel prices, and consumers desiring a more fuel-efficient car. GM was no longer going to be a dominate factor in car sales. With an ever changing economy, fuel prices and consumer demand, GM saw their fair share of ups and downs. They also witness the success that the foreign auto manufacturers were having.
In 2004, Chevrolet introduced the Cobalt for the 2005 year as the replacement for the very popular Chevy Caviler. The Cobalt was an instant hit; it was sporty, spacious and high performance depending on the model purchased. It was promoted as having a low initial price, fuel efficient and a comprehensive standard safety package that included front air bags.
A consumer grievance provoked General Motors to look into an inherent dilemma with the ignition switch. Following this original complaint, it took two years for something to be done concerning it. General Motors reacted by assigning a technical service bulletin to dealerships defining the predicament and suggesting the removal of everything from keychains so that nothing was adding any pressure to the ignition switch. They also incorporated key inserts that could mend the quandary. The enclosures were simply to be given out to patrons who criticized about having problems. In 2006, an engineer with General Motors acknowledged to changing the ignition switch in the Chevy Cobalt.
It was apparent that General Motors slipped when it came to quality assurance during the production of the Chevy Cobalt. During the initial trial, the ignition switch flaw was exposed and left uncorrected. After the imperfection had been identified, a panel was formed to examine while production proceeded. The Chevy Cobalt was manufactured and retailed at a bottom dollar to satisfy the new fuel efficiency criteria placed on auto companies. It took three years for the ignition switch to be replaced in these vehicles but the ones previously sold were not recalled.
General Motors applies a variety of distinct quality practices in its operations. Somewhere along the way General Motors ignored some of these quality processes over time leading to severe outcomes. The main shortcoming with the Cobalt is that when they were involved in an accident the airbags did not deploy as they were designed to. (Tanya, 2014). The reason for the failure was due to a faulty ignition switch. Recalling the Cobalt only confirmed that GM need to change their quality practice, as the failure in the Cobalt had clearly showed. Considering that everyone from the CEO all the way down to the team committed in production performed unethically and disregarded the quality practices that GM should have followed in the generation of their cars. Amidst the employment of Mary Barra as the CEO, a fresh beginning has commenced at General Motors (Geoff, 2014). While Mary Barra had a lot of attention on her as the first female CEO of GM, she had taken over during the middle of the major recall of the Cobalt
General Motors has policies in place when it comes to quality.

These procedures and practices are used both by GM and by their vendors. The policies vary from layered inspections, statistics, process failure modes, effects analysis and control plans (Drew, 2011). All quality measures produce a graded system of quality management utilizing quality tools. An example of quality control test is that of speedy response wherever dilemmas are resolved quickly and immediately throughout visual management. Individuals responsible for specific tasks are kept accountable for some corrective actions that may subsist. What General Motors did was ignore this quality measurement when it was dealing with the problems of the Chevrolet

Cobalt.
There remained an immense mess for General Motors in the quality procedures, first and foremost, swift acknowledgment. General Motor did not act quickly enough; the company opted to ignore the flaw instead of promptly approaching the quality issue in the Cobalt. GM should have established the means of correction to happen with an aim of repairing the malfunction. Proceedings of disclosing pertinent information as a visual management tool should have been created. With the Cobalt, the business neglected the viewpoint of a swift answer.
The restriction of the nonconforming commodity is a primary quality system at GM (Drew, 2011).

GM uses this system by containment, disposition, separation, and classification. Such a system guarantees that any outcome that does not comply with specified requirements is restricted from unintended use, restrained, and dispositioned by the administrators. Accompanied by this quality control is the verifying position where first-time quality and process capacity is advanced (Drew, 2011). Every team member is informed about any modifications in the production process and who and when to summon for assistance in the event of any quandary. Every team is also included in the problem solving to reach any improvement in goals.

Since the probe, General Motors had created a new post that is charged with responsibility for vehicle safety (Muller, 2013). General Motors terminated sixteen people for their role in not repairing the faulty ignition switch. The mindset throughout General Motors was to retain the bad news and keep it apart from senior supervisors. This was undeviatingly contributed to no effort being taken to remedy the faulty switch. Because of this, General Motors is directly accountable for the graves of 13

people.
An active quality assurance program would have prevented the predicament before it begun. Initial experimentation confirmed that there was an issue. Quality Assurance personnel should have known what steps to taken to stop the production line till the problem was rectified. While General Motors did not inevitably have an inadequate quality assurance system, it was not used efficiently or effectively. They have since ensured the appropriate steps to quality assurance system is monitored and used effectively. New hires and promotions inside the corporation have assigned new people in key posts to use the system correctly.