Yesterday, Proton held a media briefing at its Tanjung Malim plant to talk about its quality initiatives, covering the entire lifecycle from product development to after-sales. The event seemed particularly well-timed considering the mounting issues plaguing one of its key competitors.

The national carmaker is certainly feeling the heat from the brace of well-priced Chinese SUVs entering the market – a fact company officials have made known both in private and in public. But it has taken great pains to communicate its commitment to quality as a differentiator in the market place. Funny, given its image not too long ago.

Proton said its quality initiatives are in line with its three strategic aspirations – to be the #1 carmaker in Malaysia and the #3 in ASEAN, as well as achieving consistent quality by adopting global standards. The company claimed around 800 of its total employees contribute to its constant quality improvement.

To achieve its goal of maximising customer satisfaction, Proton has focused on four key areas, namely engineering and project quality, supplier quality, production quality and market quality. The first of these refers to the company’s ability to produces new models in an efficient and effective manner.

 

 

This includes the adoption of a New Product Development System (NPDS), a global standard for project management that implements strict gate reviews to identify and address potential quality issues early on in a vehicle’s development, ensuring new models are launched with a high standard of quality.

Using this approach, the market concerns ratio index (that is, the percentage of customer concerns/cases) within the first 100 days from launch has fallen from 6% with the launch of the CKD X70 in 2020 to just 2% with the S70 last year.

Engineering quality also means adopting new trends, particularly in the field of Connected, Autonomous, Shared and Electric (CASE) vehicles, to ensure the technological readiness of Proton’s products. Right now, 4G connectivity can be had across the company’s lineup except the Saga, with plans to switch over to 5G technology by 2030.

Click to enlargeMeanwhile, Level 2 semi-autonomous driving technologies are available on the X50, X90 and S70, with this year’s facelifted X70 set to get them too. As for car sharing, there are no plans as yet, but Proton wants to introduce some sort of service by 2030. Lastly, the company is making a big push towards electrification with the launch of its first battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles next year.

Proton has also worked to improve supplier quality, employing two more global standards – a structured Advanced Project Quality Development (APQP) process and Product Parts Approval Process (PPAP). The latter includes essential tools for developing, producing and distribute components that meet customer satisfaction.

The company has also looked into upgrading its suppliers’ capabilities with the introduction of the Quality Assurance System Audit (QASA) and a yearly supplier quality performance audit, ensuring sustainable product quality through advanced process control. Proton said it has registered a 43% increase in the number of vendors able to hit a minimum QASA standard of BBB (satisfactory).

An inspector showing defects on an X50 undergoing a GCPA auditNext is production quality. You may remember that shortly after Geely acquired a 49% stake in Proton, the latter adopted the former’s Global Customer Product Audit (GCPA) scoring system to measure defects in new vehicles. In 2019, Proton recorded a massive improvement in its GCPA score, from 6,388 to 1,329 (the lower, the better), closing in on the benchmark set by Geely and Volvo.

Since then, the company has reduced its score further, by a staggering 55%. Unlike in previous years, Proton has elected not to publish a concrete figure, but a 55% reduction would put its GCPA score somewhere in the 500s.

 

 

To generate a GCPA score, inspectors audit one per cent of the daily approved (or “lulus”) vehicles after pre-delivery inspection (PDI). They test each car on its safety, security and general functions, as well as conducting a performance evaluation and a static evaluation of perceived quality.

Last but not least is market quality, which refers to how a car’s quality holds up after it’s sold. Essentially, Proton looks out for any defects that are reported after a car is launched and takes steps to rectify those issues.

The company is able to detect problems after launch either through an Initial Stage Control (ISC) in the first 100 days following a new product launch, warranty claims analysis, daily market quality meetings and social media sentiment reports. Once flagged, the issues are sent to quality attack, improvement and circle teams to be rectified, with the results reviewed in weekly management quality meetings attended by CEO Li Chunrong.

Proton claimed that since this system was implemented, it has witnessed a drastic reduction in warranty claims and a 44% improvement in its 12 months in service (12MIS) product reliability index. The company added that it has resolved around 1,005 post-launch issues since 2019.

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