The team on Final Assembly 1's door line scooped Solihull’s War on Quality award last week after their great teamwork has led to a significant improvement in the number of squeaks and rattles identified on the door line.
When FA1 is in full flow, a shift can produce over 250 world-beating Range Rovers and Range Rover Sports. In an eight-hour shift the door line processes over 1,000 doors, fitting everything from windows to speakers before they get placed back on the vehicle towards the end of final assembly.
Door Line Group Leader, Marvin Calder explained, “It’s a very busy job working on the door line – as you can imagine, we process a high volume of doors so associates don’t get chance to stop.”
Marvin continued, “When we heard about Refocus and the need to transform quality we wanted to understand what we could do to play our part.”
Coming together as one team was the key to their success.
FA1 Production Manager, Angie Butler explained, “The team has really come together. By speaking, discussing, and understanding what really needs to be improved, they’ve really taken the initiative to improve their quality.”
So far, the team has reduced the number of squeaks and rattles found by over 50%.
“Working at pace, you can sometimes drop a screw or fixing, even without noticing. On occasion, these are identified on the squeak and rattle driving test. We decided as a team to dedicate some of our resources of we now have one member of the team who’s constantly checking for rattles. If one is found, it means we can fix it straight away, protecting the customer”, Marvin commented.
To transform quality even further, the team now runs quality updates regularly and works hand-in-hand to improve any rattles found, stopping issues immediately.
Well done to the whole FA1 door line at Solihull team for your dedication to quality.