Page 233 - Cambridge IGCSE Business Studies

17: Achieving quality production

CASE STUDY Volkswagen

Volkswagen AG, which sells more cars in may result in a power interruption,’ Volk-
China than any other foreign fi rm, will swagen said in its statement.
recall 384,181 vehicles there to fi x a long- ‘The most important vehicle systems, such
standing gearbox problem, China’s quality as steering and braking, along with other
watchdog said on Wednesday. relevant systems will not be affected,’ it said.
Volkswagen confi rmed the recall in the Volkswagen, which makes its cars in China,
following emailed statement. sold 2.81 million cars in the country last
‘In a very few cases, an electronic mal- year. It plans to almost double production
function in the control unit or a lack of oil capacity in the country to 4 million in the
pressure inside the gearbox mechatronics next fi ve years.

Source: Adapted from Reuters March 2013, http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/03/20/volkswagen-
china-recall-idINDEE92J04I20130320

TASK
a Why has Volkswagen AG decided to recall almost 400,000 vehicles if, as stated in the email from Volkswagen, the
problem only occurs ‘in a very few cases’?
b What does this article tell you about the importance of quality to companies such as
Volkswagen?
231

TEST YOURSELF
1 What do you understand by the term ‘quality’?
2 How do consumers influence quality?
3 State three benefits to a business of producing quality products.

How businesses achieve quality production

Quality control
KEY TERM Quality control is the traditional method businesses use to check the
quality of products. It aims to ensure that only quality products reach the
Quality control: checking
consumer.
the quality of goods through
inspection. Businesses employ trained quality inspectors to check products, usually
at the end of the production process. Sometimes products are checked at

different stages of the process. It is rarely possible to check every item
produced as it is time-consuming and therefore may be too costly for a
business to do this. The quality checking process may also require the

inspector to dismantle the product or to test the product’s strength by using
force to break it! It would be too expensive to test every product in this way.

Quality control, by inspection, usually uses sampling. This means that not
every product is checked for quality and there is always a chance of a poor
quality product finding its way to the final customer.