Automotive PPM Requirements - Our customer is trying to demand a 100% 0 defect rate

[Gman2]

SInce this is my first experience in the auto industry I am starting to become more involved in monitoring the PPM rate for certian products we produce.
A question I have is what is generally an acceptable PPM rate for the industry.
Just a little background, the parts in question are send to our customer, who welds them onto another part, preps them, and sends them onto one of the big 3. We currenty produce about 100,000 parts per week to send to them.
at the WORSE case senario we are looking at about 9 defects per 100,000 which puts us at around 90 PPM. And again this is worse case.
Best case I believe we are looking at 3 per 100,000 (where we want to be) which is 30 PPM.
The problem is, our customer is trying to demand a 100% 0 defect rate.
With our machines and processes this is just not possible. There are already several checks in place to help ensure that defects do not make it to the customer, but the process is not error proof, it's still a machine and we still use operators.
So I may take another rout with dealing with this, but I need more ammo so I am trying to do more research on accesptable PPM rates for the big 3.

Thanks

G.

 

[Marc]

Your customer is requiring 0 ppm at their dock, right?

Surely they are not requiring your equipment to function at 0 ppm.

 

[Gman2]

correct, 0 ppm at their dock.

 

[bpritts]

PPM Benchmarks - Naturally they will demand 0 ppm

Naturally they will demand 0 ppm.

Your options include:

Get industry benchmark info -- for your competition, how are they doing? Yes, this is difficult to find the truth. Possibly a friendly customer may give you some hints. Or there may be an industry association who publishes a summary of the trade.

Get other data -- Here's an example. GM in their wisdom publishes targets based on commodity. A few that I can share (from GM suppliers) are shown. The first figure reflects targeted performance for Jul 2003, the second GM's target for yearend 2003. Obviously these, too, are subject to the same problem: Since they are set by the customer they reflect the customer's demand, not your capability. These also reflect items caught by GM and officially documented; obviously they do not 100% check product so they miss some.


PPM Expectations - GM Purchasing/ Supplier Quality

Stampings : 66, 47

Mechanical Control Systems: 113, 80

Bearings: 21, 15

Having said that these are the GM targets, they do not excuse defects. You will still get customer complaints, and possibly worse (e.g. containment inspections at your expense) if you ship defective product -- even one piece, in some cases.

Knowing your competitive status is nonetheless helpful.

Regards,

Brad