preview

Bmw: the 7 Series Case Study Essays

Decent Essays

BMW: The 7 Series
1. What are the causes and consequences of BMW’s quality problems with newly launched products? What should be done to improve “launch quality”?
The causes and consequences of BMW’s quality problems with newly launched products were plentiful and apparent all throughout the case study. For instance, BMW does not use pre-production tools during prototyping. This significantly lowers their opportunity to discover and fix quality problems earlier in the production process. Secondly, they let suppliers have a say in development after “cubing” has occurred. Unfortunately, if suppliers come across problems during the first production, they often don’t have enough time to fix it before new model introduction. Finally, …show more content…

For future development projects, Carl-Peter Foster should concentrate on BMW’s core competencies of concept design and assembly- then outsource its parts to experienced suppliers who can offer further technological knowledge. In order for BMW to introduce more models more frequently, they need to decrease the lead-time from the concept phase of the car to the release of the final product to the market.
3. What changes would you recommend in the way BMW develops new models? What attributes of newly launched products would you expect to improve as a result of these recommendations? Which attributes might deteriorate?
We would recommend that BMW use the actual parts instead of substitute parts; for example, using sheet metal instead of fiberglass when developing new series models. This will help BMW detect problems earlier in the production process and make quality improvement a much easier task to achieve. Since they are using suppliers that will manufacture parts using specialized tooling, BMW should also reduce the amount of prototype batches from five to three. The first prototype batch should be done using its current process of hand design, the second prototype will use pre-production process and the third will incorporate the use of specialized tools. Using this process will significantly decrease prototyping cost and lead time.
As a result of these recommendations, the construction of prototypes

Get Access