Thread: Mercedes pushes suppliers as part of effort to combat quality issues
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Old May 9, 2005 | 07:07 AM
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Mercedes-Benz announced it has been sending "hit squads" into suppliers worldwide, and is test-driving more cars as they leave the factory, in order to overcome quality problems that prompted a record recall of 1.3 million faulty vehicles last month.

Hans-Heinrich Weingarten, Mercedes' head of production, and Bill Taylor, president of Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, said the carmaker had dropped a few suppliers and assigned its own engineers to many others.

The moves are part of a quality offensive designed to eliminate problems with Mercedes cars, which have cost the company $587 million in repairs. Mercedes claims cars now being produced are once more of high quality and problems are only with cars already sold.

Among other corrective measures, more cars are being test-driven as they come off the production line "so we get not only the static problems but also the dynamic problems," Weingarten said. He added that consolidation among parts suppliers has made it more difficult for Mercedes to monitor the supply chain.

While the company previously dealt with relatively small owner-run enterprises in Germany, it now buys entire systems and modules from much larger suppliers.

Mercedes is finally getting back to basics, but the damage is done. Restoring the reputation of the three-pointed star will be a long haul.

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do...ticleId=105578
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