Strengthening and developing partnerships is the route to continuous quality improvement, says Brendon Lowe, the new plant manager of the Ford RoCam engine facility in Struandale, Port Elizabeth.

Lowe was part of a management team which helped steer the plant to raise quality standards by more than 50 per cent between 2004 and 2005, and to reduce warranty claims costs by half in the same period.

This improvement was due to the leadership and guidance provided by Javier Igual Garcia, an expatriate from a leading Ford engine plant in Spain, who completed his two-year plant management contract in December 2005, as well as substantial investments in new machinery, according to Lowe.

“Ford has invested R45-million in the last 18 months, and we plan to spend another R25-million on upgrades in the next year,” he says.

RoCam engines made in the plant are powering Ford vehicles on four continents: Europe, Asia, South America and Africa. In South Africa, the engine is used in the Ikon, Bantam pickup and Ka, which is assembled in Spain. The plant exports more than 200 000 engines a year and employs more than 820 people.

While the Struandale plant is one of only two in the world to make the RoCam, there is strong competition from other engine factories in the Ford group.

Workers and management in the plant, as well as its suppliers, have ensured that the South African product competes successfully against the best in the world, he says.

It has ISO9001/9002 and 14001 certification, in addition to meeting Ford’s own stringent QS 9000 quality standards. But, quality standards increase all the time and this is where support from Ford partners is important.

“The future of this plant is dependant on us continuing to meet the ever-increasing quality demands of Ford’s customers.

“We have the advantage of being able to call in the help of Ford’s European powertrain experts, which helped us to bench-mark ourselves against plants in Germany, Spain and England,” he says.

Fundamental to the success of the plant is the active involvement by all the workers at the plant in the continuous drive to improve quality. The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), which represents 81 per cent of hourly paid employees in the plant, publicly supports the initiative in a partnership with management.

Suppliers are also vital members of the partnership, adds Lowe. “We work closely with them to ensure that we as partners can achieve the same global standard. Our plan is to have all our suppliers Q1 accredited by 2007,” he says.

An immediate spin-off for the suppliers is that international markets are opened to them because of their proven quality standards.

Looking ahead, Lowe says the objective is to ensure that the Struandale plant, which has been making engines for Ford since 1961, continues to make power plants beyond the life of the RoCam, which is due to be phased out in around 2012.

“With the support of our partners, I am sure that we will secure another engine contract to take us beyond RoCam,” says Lowe.