Visteon Receives Two Major Industry Awards for Quality
4 December 1997
Visteon Receives Two Major Industry Awards for Quality
CHESTERFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich., Dec. 4 -- Visteon Automotive
Systems today received from J.D. Power and Associates two of the industry's
most prestigious quality awards.
J.D. Power III, founder and chairman of J.D. Power and Associates,
presented the awards, one for seats and one for audio head units, to Charles
Szuluk, president, Visteon Automotive Systems, at a ceremony at the
Chesterfield Plant, where the seats are manufactured. Susan Baska, plant
manager at Chesterfield, and John Check, director, Seating Systems, were also
in attendance.
Mike Maloney, director, Multimedia Systems, also attended the ceremony to
celebrate the audio award.
The awards are the result of J.D. Power and Associates 1997 Seat Quality
Report and 1997 Audio Quality Report, which ranked Visteon the highest quality
supplier of seats and audio head units respectively with the fewest consumer-
reported problems in new 1997 vehicles after three months of service. The
reports cover North American-built vehicles.
Szuluk said the awards exemplify Visteon's number one objective: making
its customers successful.
"Visteon is committed to providing the best systems solutions, and this is
one example of what we can do when our customers are the primary focus of our
business," Szuluk said. "We believe that having the best quality is critical
to making our customers successful."
The awards are especially important because they reflect consumer opinion.
To produce the reports, J.D. Power and Associates surveyed customers in the
United States on seats and audio units in their new 1997 vehicles. More than
150 car and truck models were represented in the survey.
The awards also confirm Visteon's own internal quality measurements that
show significant overall improvements in quality performance. For example,
Visteon "problem parts per million," or PPM rating, has improved this year by
more than 60 percent over 1996.
Visteon seats are the highest quality for North American-built vehicles
with 11.3 problems per 100 vehicles. That's significantly lower than the
industry average of 15.7 problems per 100 vehicles, Power said. The report
identifies quality by reporting seat problems consumers have experienced or
things gone wrong.
Visteon audio head units are the highest quality for North American-built
vehicles with the fewest consumer-reported problems in 1997 vehicles after
three months in service. Consumers reported 3.6 problems per 100 vehicles.
The industry average is 5.1 per 100 vehicles. The audio units are produced at
Visteon's Altec Electronics Plant in Chihuahua, Mexico, and FIC Plant in Sao
Paulo, Brazil.
"In the end, this kind of endorsement of our Visteon brand products tells
us we're providing the quality that will help make our customers successful,"
Szuluk said.
By January, all of Visteon's 45 wholly owned plants around the world are
expected to be compliant with the industry standard for quality, QS9000.
Visteon Automotive Systems, an enterprise of Ford Motor Company ,
has 78,000 employees located in 74 plants, including 29 joint venture
facilities, and 30 sales offices, engineering and technical centers in 19
countries around the world.
SOURCE Visteon Automotive Systems
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