Hello Everyone,

Originally from Automotive steel pressing background I have now progressed to powertrain side of Automotive.

I would like to understand and Benchmark some key performance metrics of a Diesel Engine plant and would be interested if anyone can share comparable metrics.

Some of he metrics I have been provided with for the Engine plant is as follows:

Production Quality

Observance rate of Quality Process
Field DPHU (internal/external)
Early stage DPHU
MTBF (Mean time before failure)

Development Quality

Target Durability by displacement and application of Engine Assembly & Parts
Engine endurance test method and criteria
Endurance test of vehicle matched parts (difficult to do on Dynamo)
Method and criteria of Engine test on vehicle (Noise, Vibration etc)


Plant Quality
Quality management index of:

Assembly line
Test run line
Machining line
Parts

Evaluation of Quality
Audit process and metrics for:

Assembly line
Test run line
Machining line
Parts

Field Quality
Quality index of in field quality:

Visible quality - fault understood and resolved (through change of part)
Invisible quality - fault difficult to diagnose and resolved by effort other than change of part
Field quality index and evaluation (DPHU?)
Post warranty quality monitoring

I realise these are quite specific in some cases but would welcome any guidance. Particuarly from anyone who has experience in Engine manufacturing plants.

Thanks for taking the time to read this message.

Kind Regards

Chris O'Leary

Hi Chris,

That's a pretty ambitious list.

I wonder, how does one measure Observance rate of Quality Process?

Chris:

I'm not 'happy' that what you've got here are metrics! My experience has been in a number of NA engine plants (domestics and transplants) and these aren't metrics that I'm familiar with - I can see that some are processes you'd apply metrics to, but not the actual metrics. I'm used to FTC (First Time Capability) for most manufacturing processes (machining, assembly and test).

Some of what you've got are incorrectly categorized too - MTBF is, I believe, more of a design quality metric, rather than manufacturing quality function.

Where did you get these items?

Hi Chris,

That's a pretty ambitious list.

I wonder, how does one measure Observance rate of Quality Process?

That's exactly what I though when I was assigned to gather and report this data...I knew I could call into the cove to get some feedback on the list anyway.

Thanks for posting a reply.

Chris

Chris:

I'm not 'happy' that what you've got here are metrics! My experience has been in a number of NA engine plants (domestics and transplants) and these aren't metrics that I'm familiar with - I can see that some are processes you'd apply metrics to, but not the actual metrics. I'm used to FTC (First Time Capability) for most manufacturing processes (machining, assembly and test).

Some of what you've got are incorrectly categorized too - MTBF is, I believe, more of a design quality metric, rather than manufacturing quality function.

Where did you get these items?

Hey Andy,

You are not the only one who's not happy.:mg:
This list was supplied by a Asian Engine manufacturing plant management team.
I was assigned to list comparative benchmarks for the company against the list exactly as I put it in the post. I don't agree with the classification either.

A lot of these are not easily comparable either as benchmarks.
As I was scratching my head on it thought I would post it in the cove anyway.

Thanks for your response.

Chris

Hello Everyone,

Originally from Automotive steel pressing background I have now progressed to powertrain side of Automotive.

I would like to understand and Benchmark some key performance metrics of a Diesel Engine plant and would be interested if anyone can share comparable metrics.

Some of he metrics I have been provided with for the Engine plant is as follows:

Production Quality

Observance rate of Quality Process
Field DPHU (internal/external)
Early stage DPHU
MTBF (Mean time before failure)

Development Quality

Target Durability by displacement and application of Engine Assembly & Parts
Engine endurance test method and criteria
Endurance test of vehicle matched parts (difficult to do on Dynamo)
Method and criteria of Engine test on vehicle (Noise, Vibration etc)


Plant Quality
Quality management index of:

Assembly line
Test run line
Machining line
Parts

Evaluation of Quality
Audit process and metrics for:

Assembly line
Test run line
Machining line
Parts

Field Quality
Quality index of in field quality:

Visible quality - fault understood and resolved (through change of part)
Invisible quality - fault difficult to diagnose and resolved by effort other than change of part
Field quality index and evaluation (DPHU?)
Post warranty quality monitoring

I realise these are quite specific in some cases but would welcome any guidance. Particuarly from anyone who has experience in Engine manufacturing plants.

Thanks for taking the time to read this message.

Kind Regards

Chris O'Leary

Hello Chris,

I'm just curious.....;)

Have you been asked to come up with benchmarks because you are (or working on) ISO/TS 16949:2002?

This is what I was thinking about when I read your post:

From ISO/TS 16949:2002:

8.4.1 Analysis and use of data

Trends in quality and operational performance shall be compared with progress toward objectives and lead to action to support the following:
 development of priorities for prompt solutions to customer-related problems;
 determination of key customer-related trends and correlation for status review, decision-making and longer term planning;
 an information system for the timely reporting of product information arising from usage.

NOTE Data should be compared with those of competitors and/or appropriate benchmarks.

Benchmarking was a requirement in QS-9000. Now in ISO/TS 16949:2002, it is "de-emphasized" because the reference is contained in a NOTE.

Is that what you had in mind?

Stijloor.

This list was supplied by a Asian Engine manufacturing plant management team.

Perhaps you need to sit down with them and try to understand what are they after. I suspect the translation is not well done because I still detect strong 'Asian Language Flavor' there.

Hello Chris,

I'm just curious.....;)

Have you been asked to come up with benchmarks because you are (or working on) ISO/TS 16949:2002?

This is what I was thinking about when I read your post:

From ISO/TS 16949:2002:

8.4.1 Analysis and use of data

Trends in quality and operational performance shall be compared with progress toward objectives and lead to action to support the following:
 development of priorities for prompt solutions to customer-related problems;
 determination of key customer-related trends and correlation for status review, decision-making and longer term planning;
 an information system for the timely reporting of product information arising from usage.

NOTE Data should be compared with those of competitors and/or appropriate benchmarks.

Benchmarking was a requirement in QS-9000. Now in ISO/TS 16949:2002, it is "de-emphasized" because the reference is contained in a NOTE.

Is that what you had in mind?

Stijloor.

Hello Stijloor,

I don't think its TS related, more just what some east asian plant guy thinks are his benchmark metrics.

I already had one round where I tried to explain difficulty of using some of the items as benchmarks.

He is pretty rigid to his original request and just asked me again to tell him the numbers!

Oh well I will have a go as far as I can but not sure how much use they will be in practice.

Thanks for your reply.

Chris

Perhaps you need to sit down with them and try to understand what are they after. I suspect the translation is not well done because I still detect strong 'Asian Language Flavor' there.

Hello Harry,

Fair point on the Translation.
I think it could be a case of that and also "apples" for "bannanas"
On things like Mean Time Between Failure he is asking for a number for Company A, B & C, But I already told him we need to compare products so in the case of Engines comparing 6L V6 is Ok for MTBF but for a company? That means the average of the entire engine range.

Its still a bit lost on the guy and so if he wants bannanas....

Thanks for you response, its good to get some common though feedback on where I am even if I am working with a guy who is going bannanas :)

Chris

Hi all,

Thought I would post a reply to let those who contributed know how I got on with this.

I researched all the metrics and was able to come up with most of the data.
Though as a "Benchmark" some of the items were not really suitable to make reasonable comparisson. So for some metrics it was for the entire company, whilst the client was really interested in benchmarking directly against only the Engine Division.

Please bear in mind the client "Company A" was a East Asian - Diesel Engine Manufacturer

Anyway here are some of the details I came up with:
Production Quality
Observance rate of Quality Process
This was based on audit of the process and the adherence to the standard operating procedure process. Off-Standards from the standard process therefore brought the value down from 100%.
I had two values Company A = 91% and Company B = 100%.

Field DPHU (internal/external)
Defects per Hundred units. Very difficult to benchmark.
Company A reported Internal 22 / External 6. This seemed very high.
But the definition of what constituted a defect seemed to be different to that which others might use.
On investigation this would seem to indicate a straight through ratio on Internal but external.
I therefore was not able to report any comparative measures.

Early stage DPHU
As Field DPHU above

MTBF (Mean time before failure):
Company A 2,900 Hours, Company B 2,000 Hours.
These were for similar Engine layout and displacement.

Development Quality:
These metrics requests were cancelled

Plant Quality & Audit Process:
Company A had no exsiting audit measurement process.
For this a structured process audit with scoring mechanism was drafted and supplied, since this would be bespoke to each company in its own method and scoring a benchmark value was not applicable.

Quality index of in field quality:
Here examples of Warranty as % and as a Value of sales were supplied.

Not looking for any further input but just wanted to share the data I got.
Thanks to all those who replied to the original post.

Kind Regards

Chris O'Leary