Problem

A Tier-1 supplier was running at roughly 900 PPM against a customer target of 300, and had been on a watch list for two quarters. Eight of the top ten complaints were being closed as "operator error", so nothing in the process was changing.

Approach

We rebuilt the complaint process so that closing a complaint needed evidence instead of someone to blame.

  • Every complaint got a containment decision within four hours and a verified root cause within twenty days, or it escalated.
  • We reviewed each 8D for whether it identified the escape point as well as the cause point.
  • Recurring complaints were grouped by failure mode across part numbers, which surfaced two process problems hidden behind eleven separate reports.
If the process allowed an operator to make the error, the complaint closes as a process problem.

Outcome

PPM fell to 280 over twelve months. Complaint closure time dropped from a median of fifty-one days to eighteen. The watch list rating was lifted at the following customer audit.

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