Shainin at GM, a history
Richard D. Shainin
Shainin support for General Motors started in 1962, when Dorian received a call for help from a young quality manager at Frigidaire, a GM division at the time. The quality manager had attended a seminar that Dorian Shainin delivered on "Solving Tough Quality Problems", and needed help with a problem. That led to work with both Chevrolet and Pontiac on problems with vehicles.
As a young boy, I looked forward to the weekends when my father would return from his week's travels visiting clients. He would regale me with stories of the detective work involved with solving these problems. I remember that the Pontiac problem involved "hot start", meaning that after the car had been driven and shut down, it wouldn't restart until it had cooled down. This was an intermittent problem adding to the challenge of solving it. Years later, I was talking with a GM executive who mentioned that Dorian had helped him solve a problem at Pontiac in the 1960s. "That wasn't the hot start problem, was it?" I asked. With a very surprised look, he said it was. For me, this was one of many cases that influenced me to become an engineer. For the GM executive, it was a successful project that helped advance his career.
GM was so pleased with Dorian's contributions, the quality director offered to sell him one of their PEP cars. Dorian could pick any GM vehicle; they would build it with the accessories he wanted, drive it for a few thousand miles at the Milford proving grounds and price it as a used car. Since he was in his early 50s, I'm sure the quality director thought he would order a Buick or a Cadillac, but Dorian had always dreamed of driving a Corvette. So on his next visit to Detroit, he brought my mother along and they drove home in a 1966 silver green Stingray.
Dorian did occasional work for GM throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In the early 1980s, two divisions from the Automotive Components Group sought training to develop their problem solving skills. Delco Moraine, the division that made braking systems, started a training program for their engineers and suppliers. Harrison, the division that made radiators, heat exchangers and air-conditioning wanted training for their engineers. As time went on the program expanded throughout the Automotive Components Group, but there was little or no Shainin activity at the vehicle assembly plants or the power train division.
That changed with the launch of a new Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird in 1993. The launch was in trouble due to steering and axle noise problems that weren't getting resolved. Shainin was brought in the find the Red X. Our disciplined approach and rapid success was noticed by the GM quality director and soon we were working with the assembly plants.
Shainin projects have helped GM:
- Eliminate hardy perennial problems (problems that reoccur year after year).
- Improve the JD Powers initial quality survey results.
- Improve plant productivity.
- Successfully launch a number of new vehicle platforms.
The Harbour Report – North America 2001, describes GM Powertrain Toledo as the number one ranking transmission plant. They go on to state:
"One of the plants biggest successes is its Red X strategy, which goes beyond fixing an individual problem and instead targets the root of that problem. With its Red X strategy, Toledo completely solves a problem and thus eliminates future problems. It should come as no surprise, then, that the plant's quality levels also have risen throughout the transformation."
Over the years, thousands of GM employees have been trained in the Shainin Red X® problem solving approach. As importantly, GM executives have been trained to ask the right questions when problems occur, ensuring that the teams are rapidly converging on the Red X.