An Empirical Study of QS 9000 in the Automobile and Related Industries in Taiwan

Abstract

QS 9000 was established by three famous automotive manufacturers—Ford, GM & Chrysler—who integrated different quality systems among the automotive manufacturers and developed this common quality system standard. QS 9000 achieves its objectives, which are continually to improve the production of automotive parts and related services, and to strengthen the international competition for the automotive industry and its suppliers. By applying this quality system standard, automotive manufacturers could offer superior products and good services to customers. Two sections are included in this research. The first section comes with the statistical results of surveys of automotive companies in Taiwan that have failed and succeeded in QS 9000. Furthermore, the performances after executing QS 9000 were evaluated by internal management and the PZB model. The second section provides a systematic procedure for QS 9000 and internal quality audits that help an automotive industry company to qualify for QS 9000 registration. The study tends to provide a reference guide for the automotive industry in pursuing QS 9000 and procuring maximum benefit from the results.

Keywords:

• QS 9000
• PZB Model

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees for reading the paper and for several suggestions. The authors would also like to thank the National Science Council of Taiwan, R.O.C. for financially supporting this research under No. NSC-89-2213-E-324-020.