ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an example that deals with a problem experienced with a major supplier that threatened to shut down two truck assembly plants because of a perceived noise problem. The noise was generated in a transaxle that was provided by an outside supplier. The cost of the truck plant downtime was so significant that a team of problem solvers was dispatched to the supplier facility from the customer corporation headquarters. Since the human measurement was subjective while driving the vehicles with the test transaxles, the test machine readout was established by the transaxle manufacturing plant to be the measurement criteria for the determination of an acceptable product. The example has provided many useful insights that can be applied to similar difficult or obtuse manufacturing problems.
