Automotive Industry Applauds New `Lean Quality' Methodology from Attensity
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--April 19, 2004--| Lean Quality Described by Experts as Revolutionary Way to Boost Product Quality and Reduce Warranty Expenses |
Attensity, an emerging leader in data analysis software, today announced that Lean Quality is rapidly gaining acceptance among automotive industry analysts, research institutions and quality experts. The Lean Quality methodology, which calls for automotive manufacturers to begin systematically leveraging text information for the description, discovery and measurement of quality problems, promises to deliver increased insight into the quality chain, driving quality improvement, reducing warranty expenses and boosting customer satisfaction. (Note to media: ASQ Automotive Division and Carnegie Mellon GSIA will host a conference on Lean Quality on April 21, 2004. For more information, please see below or visit www.asqauto.org.)
Among the early supporters of Lean Quality are representatives from leading industry organizations such as AMR Research, ASQ Automotive Division and the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG). Kevin Mixer, an automotive analyst with AMR Research, noted, "Lean Quality is likely to revolutionize the quality industry in the same way that Lean Manufacturing has permanently altered manufacturing processes. Automotive manufacturers should strongly consider embracing this new methodology as a way to improve quality processes and compress root cause cycle times."
Similar to Lean Manufacturing, Lean Quality urges automotive manufacturers to move from batch analysis to a problem flow approach, eliminating bottlenecks and ensuring that quality issues can be quickly and properly identified, prioritized and routed to the appropriate point of responsibility. As part of this methodology, Lean Quality calls for the systematic capture and analysis of text-based information describing quality problems along with conventional coded data -- allowing manufacturers to adopt a problem description orientation rather than the traditional problem code orientation to describe failures that result in warranty claims.
Part and service codes have been a source of ongoing difficulties for many manufacturers, as coding processes vary across the industry and the codes themselves inaccurately represent product performance problems. Multiple codes often describe a common problem and a single code often describes multiple problems, which can dilute problems and lead to improper prioritization. By augmenting these codes with rich, text-based information sources, manufacturers can spot problem trends earlier, gain better insight into existing problems and route problems more efficiently to constituents well positioned to take action. This approach augments the existing business processes that have been utilized in the automotive industry, rather than replacing them.
Lou Ann Lathrop, chair of ASQ Automotive Division, commented, "The current systems for specific data analysis on warranty problems are slow and laborious. The technology exists today to do powerful data analysis. I'm glad that the American Society for Quality is hosting a conference on April 21 on Lean Quality and look forward to the improvements that could be realized."
Andrew Cummins, executive director of AIAG, also commented "AIAG is working to develop a new approach to Early Warning to benefit the entire automotive industry, particularly in response to the TREAD legislation. We see Lean Quality as helping to provide a more accurate and detailed understanding of problems, which supports our Early Warning initiative."
"In building relationships with our customers, we have found ourselves in a unique position to radically impact quality improvement processes," said Craig Norris, CEO of Attensity. "Text-based information is often understood as containing valuable information but, until now, no one has been able to analyze it in a systematic, aggregated fashion or represent it in a way that becomes actionable. The Lean Quality methodology helps manufacturers begin taking advantage of this data, and to do it much earlier in the decision-making and analysis process than today."
Attensity is committed to helping commercial enterprises, such as automotive companies and durable goods manufacturers, address quality issues. The company's patented software automatically extracts factual data from text-based sources such as warranty claims, customer surveys and service records, and then combines it with other business-critical data to deliver enhanced visibility across the entire quality, reliability and durability (QRD) process.
With Attensity's solutions, organizations can quickly leverage information from all facets of the QRD process to detect problems, identify root causes and empower product organizations with the information they need to improve quality and reduce warranty expense. Instead of waiting for months to accumulate and manually process information, organizations have the granular and accurate data necessary to find and fix problems earlier in the cycle, and in some cases, even before they arise.
Lean Quality Conference
ASQ Automotive Division and Carnegie Mellon GSIA will host a conference on Lean Quality on April 21, 2004 at Madonna University in Livonia, Mich. Space is limited. Attendees can register by contacting Clarity Patton at clarity@costello.cc or 1-313-965-8989. Interested press should contact Tara Smith at tsmith@sterlingpr.com or 1-503-292-6776.
About Attensity
Attensity Corporation is an emerging leader in advanced data analysis software for commercial enterprises and government agencies. Attensity's solutions are the first to join structured and unstructured data, enabling organizations to perform analytics that speed response to critical events and issues that, until now, have been difficult to detect and resolve. For more information, please visit www.attensity.com.