A new report by the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) has flagged analytics to identify root causes as one of the critical recommendations in their Quality 2020 Survey. The new report is available free from the AIAG website. It looks at data from across the automotive supply chain.
The new report:
Is potentially a watershed moment for AIAG and the automotive industry. For more than 30 years, AIAG has worked collaboratively with its member automakers, suppliers, service providers, government entities, and academia to address the industry’s pain points and drive continual improvement. The process and due diligence behind the Quality 2020 study has provided a credible opportunity to hear the voice of the entire industry.
Several findings jump out at me.
First, the report reveals great concern about the industry’s ability to solve problems.
“Almost two-thirds of respondents feel their organizations are at best moderately capable at Problem Solving. More than half see significant risk if no action is taken to close the gap between where the industry is today versus where the industry should be.”
The detail underlying that concern is relevant to our business: suppliers aren’t performing root cause analysis, and they’re jumping to conclusions.
Second, as the baby boom generation retires, this problem is only going to get worse.
“OEMs and suppliers are particularly concerned about the large number of retirements in the next five to eight years (due to retiring Baby Boomers), which will result in a loss of know-how, teachers, and mentors… Nearly half of respondents expect it will require a high level of difficulty to reduce the industry’s risks associated with the loss of knowledge and expertise.”
“Analytics to identify the roots. Effective identification of root causes was consistently cited by OEMs and suppliers. Leverage advanced predictive analytics capabilities to sift through big data and improve root cause analysis capabilities.”
