Solutions Center

by Dale Seidlitz, Manager of Global Quality

Every November, we at HARMAN International celebrate Quality Month around the world. Quality is the number one principle we are founded on. Without quality, we have nothing and cannot continue to grow and achieve the great success at the rate we have in our organization. The quality initiative is paramount, from a product’s original concept through design, manufacturing and ultimately the customer experience.

In the Luxury Audio Group, we take quality seriously to the point we over-design our products to be certain they have the robustness to last a lifetime. We test our products with reliability, safety and especially Highly Accelerated Life Testing (HALT) to be certain that what was designed and manufactured is proven to last that lifetime. Our goal is simple — we strive for zero defects at our factories before we ship any product to a customer.

Simply stated, we want our customer to come back, not our products.

We use numerous tools to continuously improve the processes every day. The most common tools for decision-making are the Ishikawa or Fishbone diagram, the 5Why process, process flowing, and DMAIC.

One tool that I use that can be simplified and used is called the “What Is/What Is Not Matrix.”

This matrix looks at a failure in a process or in the field and breaks down the what, where, when, how, trends and observations of an issue. With this, it is the start of dissecting the problem to focus on what is important to the issue and what has no impact to the issue at all. It allows a team to quickly ascertain what is important and what is not. Here is an example of the matrix.

While we celebrate quality in November, it’s our way of life year round. Contact me directly at [email protected] any time you have questions or want to learn more about HARMAN’s commitment to bring our customers the highest quality products.