VDA：Customized for Chinese Market

Gasgoo.com: Would you please introduce briefly about the VDA-QMC’S business and operational areas of VDA-QMC China? How do you posit the Chinese market in the world?

Robert Frank: The German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) with head office in Berlin nationally and internationally promotes the interests of the entire German automotive industry in all fields of the motor transport sector, for example in economic, transport and environmental policy, technical legislation, standardization and quality assurance. In addition, the VDA organizes the IAA International Motor Show, which is held every year.

The VDA currently has more than 600 member companies. The members are companies that operate a plant in Germany for the industrial production of motor vehicles, trailers, body structures, containers and vehicle parts and accessories.|

One business unit of the VDA is the Quality Management Center (VDA-QMC). The executive management responsible for Quality Management of German manufacturers and suppliers define the standards and processes that are to be followed in the automotive supply chain of German manufacturers, such as VW, Daimler, BMW. The VDA-QMC is developing and implementing such standards with the support of the most experienced experts from the OEMs and suppliers. VDA-QMC China is the legal representative of VDA-QMC Germany in China. We translate quality standards and methods from German into English and Chinese and distribute this together with our trainings to support best practice quality management in the automotive supply chain in China. But our services include also process audits, gap analysis, coaching for best practice and market research for automotive customers.

Gasgoo.com: What’s the present situation of the automotive components quality in China? How you think of the future trend of it? From your point of view, what is the hardest part for the Chinese local companies to do the VDA?

Robert Frank: The Chinese market is currently the fastest growing market in the world. Fast growth is always in risky and needs strong control of all changes. The changes relate not only to the volumes produced but even more to changes in technology, business processes and regulatory requirements coming from Chinese authorities as well as customer requirements. I believe that also China will come eventually to the insight of western OEMs that management of quality is not all but without management of quality all is worthless and companies cannot be sustainable successful. German OEMs and suppliers have invested considerable effort to establish sophisticated quality methods and quality processes in the development, manufacturing, sales and service which gives in return a high value to the products and services offered. The lesson learnt was that “quality pays”. In my point of view the hardest part for Chinese local companies is to develop a consistent strategy for sustainable and stable growth and customer satisfaction which deploys a company culture and company processes addressing leadership, team work, defect prevention, stable and controlled quality and fast response to customer needs e.g. for corrective action. This new culture should be driven by an eagerness of management and staff to belong to the best in class.

Gasgoo.com: Will VDA provide the customized product solution in order to help your customers to improve the quality? Would you please introduce a successful case of that?

Robert Frank: About the Supplier, we have the Supplier target: to improve supplier evaluation to "A" level. The company has had more than 250 employees. The Main manufacturing processes: Stamping, Welding, Heat treatment, Painting, Assembly. And the companies must be a ISO/TS16949 certified company. Also there is an improvement program, which starts on Sep. 10 2009, ends on May 2010. The general Coaching Scheme has 5 steps: Step 1: Supplier current status evaluation and VW Formel-Q evaluation; Step 2: Define action plan and achievement monitoring method; Step 3: Self-assessment; Step 4: Audit conducted by VW and VDA-QMC auditors and support the supplier to establish a corrective action plan; Step 5: Monitor the implementation of corrective actions, and verify the effectiveness of their actions.

If the company adapt the VDA, it’s main achievements will be: 1. the company staff understands customer requirements very well in each level; 2. Management and staff know the product quality level very clear after implementing product audits; 3. Clear job requirements, internal customer(s), performance indicators, work location requirements, material to be used, equipment to be used, qualification requirements, environmental requirements, etc. for each person to ensure everyone is able to provide the correct product to the correct position in correct time in correct sequence at reasonable cost; 4. The company met VW’s A class requirements and has the ability to continual improve its product quality and reduced cost of quality.

Gasgoo.com: What is the special part of VDA-QMC Training and Professional Development? What is the moment Training focus?

Robert Frank: The slogan of VDA-QMC in Germany is “From best practice for best practice” which fits also to the Chinese market. VDA methods are representing best practice and state of the art quality management. The methods and standards are published in the VDA “red books” and the authors of these red books are not academic people who just invent theories but they are working other way round by transforming best practice into a theory or a method. So they also know how to do and how to implement these red books in practice and they develop practice oriented trainings. Our Chinese trainers and experts participate in the further development of books and trainings and are best prepared to train best practice and support implementation in the companies which request such services from us. This is the real strength of VDA-QMC which cannot be provided by any other company, because only VDA-QMC is the owner of genuine, updated and first-hand knowledge. Our trainers and experts are coached and evaluated to deliver the same service quality as our German trainers.

Gasgoo.com: We all know that VDA-QMC is one of the five IATF oversight offices; this is out of what kind of arrangement or purpose?

Robert Frank: The goals of the IATF are best described in the section 0.5 of the ISO/TS 16949 where it reads: “The goal of this Technical Specification is the development of a quality management system that provides for continual improvement, emphasizing defect prevention and the reduction of variation and waste in the supply chain.

This Technical Specification, coupled with applicable customer-specific requirements, defines the fundamental quality management system requirements for those subscribing to this Technical Specification.This Technical Specification are intended to avoid multiple certification audits and provide a common approach to a quality management system for automotive production, and relevant service part organizations.” Even though VDA still believes that the VDA 6.1 standard for automotive certification is an excellent standard for all companies who are on the edge for excellence, VDA-QMC committed to the ISO/TS 16949 in order to relieve suppliers from the burden to strive for multiple certifications.

Gasgoo.com: As a service provider, how do you think VDA can better service the automotive industry? How do you regard VDA’s present situation, what’s you future developing plan in China?

Robert Frank: As mentioned before, VDA-QMC can provide to Chinese customers knowledge, trainings and services that represent “state of the art” and best practice. The quality of German cars demonstrates the effectiveness of these methods. German cars stand for long life quality and reliability. Our mission is to support the supply chain in China to be successful partners of German OEMs. In my opinion we help them with our services also to be potential international players. If you want to be an international player you have to have either unique selling characteristics or be able to provide benchmark compositeness in cost, quality and time. If quality is disregarded a supplier will have no chance to export to Germany or other international OEMs with high quality expectations. Our goal for the future is to improve the quality management of Chinese suppliers to meet requirements of German OEMs and by this we do believe we contribute also to develop such suppliers for international competitiveness. So the success of VDA-QMC and German OEMs is linked to the success of Chinese automotive suppliers in a Win-Win situation.