A study of quality initiative among the automotive vendors in Malaysia / Kamaruzaman Mat Jusoh

This study is a research program on the study of quality initiative among the automotive industry focusing at vendor quality management. It is meant to" give a general picture of how vendors are doing as a collective entity in their quality pursuit, specifically in quality initiative. The research methodology involved a survey using a set of established questionnaire addressed to quality personnel and other equivalent offers. On the overall picture of the study, the work layout consists of four phase captured in PDCA cycle: Plan, Do, check and act. The results highlight vendor performance in six quality criteria and two groups of quality implementation initiatives. Some of the key findings indicate the majority of vendors' isolated ISO 9000 and 9001 certification from TQM implementation. In introduction of TQM, just seventy six percent of vendors have introduced TQM and twenty four percent vendors have not introduced. However, the overall results suggest that vendors are still lack of TQM understanding. Generally, it could be concluded that majority of vendors have introduced TQM in one from or another. However, there is still ample room for improvement. On this note an improvement model was suggested to bring up the level of vendor quality practice. The suggested improvement model of the TQM implementation has three major segments: (1) assessment prior to an improvement exercise, (2) major elements in TQM improvement framework, and (3) assessment after an improvement exercise. SWOT analysis and PDCA are two of the main elements in the suggested improvement framework. The proposed framework is basically a group of quality elements translated into activities.-