General Electric Appliance Company Quality Control Instruments

Quality Control of General Electric Appliance Company
Company background
General Electric Appliances is renowned for designing and building the best appliances across the globe. Ranging from the design process to production and further to service, the main endeavor of GE Appliances is to assist people in enhancing their lives at home. From self-cleaning varieties to ice and water dispensers, to speed cook rotisseries and fridges that make coffee, GE Appliances has electrified and simplified life for over 12 decades with our heritage of innovation (GE Appliances, 2020).
GE Appliances has its main center of operations situated in Louisville in the state of Kentucky, United States. The company has manufacturing facilities operating in Decatur in the state of Alabama. Moreover, GE Appliances has wholly-owned subsidiaries that are situated in Georgia and also in Tennessee (GE Appliances, 2020). Significantly, GE Appliances has ownership of FirstBuild, a multinational co-creation community, and an ultramodern micro-factory that is set in its headquarters. The company set up the second FirstBuild locality in Korea, and a third high-tech micro-factory is situated in India. These platforms guarantee that the company's most ideal conceptions and novel products for the present-day modern home get to the consumers in a faster manner (GE Appliances, 2020).
Notably, up until the 2016 fiscal year, GE Appliances was owned by General Electric. The company was up to that time referred to as GE Appliances & Lighting and GE Consumer & Industrial. However, this year, Haier took majority ownership of the company, obtaining 90 percent shares. Significantly, Haier obtained the right and liberty to capitalize on the General Electric brand name up until 2056 (Flannery, 2016). Becoming a part of this massive multinational organization grants GE Appliances with extra resources to go on partaking in innovation and retailing their products globally (GE Appliances, 2020).
Size of the Company
GE Appliances has an annual revenue of $7 billion. The company has employed 12 000 employees. General Electric has global operations in more than 170 countries across the world. The company has 205,000 employees in total. The revenues of the company experienced a 2 percent decline in the past year to decrease from $97,012 in 2018 to $95,214 in 2019 (General Electric, 2019).
Product or Service Mix
General Electric has different appliance brands, including Monogram, Café, Haier, Profile, and Hotpoint. The products manufactured and retailed by GE Appliances comprise of Refrigerators, Ranges, Microwaves, Dishwashers, Washers, Room Air Conditioners, Wall Ovens, Water Filtration Systems, Ice Makers, Trash Compactors, Laundry Units, Water Softeners and several others (GE Appliances, 2020).
GE Appliances' Competitors in the Market
GE Appliances faced intense competition from other players in the market. These include the following:
1. LG Electronics
LG is a multinational electronics corporation with its main center of operations situated in South Korea. LG partakes in the manufacturing of home appliances comprising refrigerators, washing machines, tumble dryers, vacuum cleaners, air conditioners, and microwave ovens. Moreover, in recent years, LG has intensified its rivalry in the market through the unveiling of smart appliances that permits users to communicate, control, supervise, and share information with the appliances to function.
2. Whirlpool Corporation
This is a multinational manufacturer, marketer, and retailer of home appliances with its center of operations situated in Michigan in the United States. The company has a yearly revenue of just about over $21 billion and has employed over 90,000 personnel, in addition to operating over 70 manufacturing and technology research facilities across the globe. Some of the company's major brands include Hotpoint, Acros, Amana, Royalstar, Whirlpool, and also Hefei Sanyo.
3. Samsung
Samsung Electronics is a multinational corporation that has its headquarters situated in South Korea. Significantly, Samsung Electronics operates numerous assembly plants across the globe and has sales systems in more than 70 nations and hires approximately 300,000 personnel. It is the biggest manufacturer of consumer electronics across the globe in terms of revenue generated. Also, the company is deemed to be the second biggest technology company in the world in terms of revenue.
4. Electrolux
Electrolux is a multinational manufacturer of home appliances with its main center of operations situated in Stockholm in Sweden. Notably, in terms of competition, Electrolux is incessantly ranked as the second biggest appliance manufacturer in the world in terms of units sold after Whirlpool Corporation. Electrolux products retail under a wide range of brand names as well as their own and are fundamentally major appliances and vacuum cleaners designed and purposed for consumer use. Also, Electrolux manufactures appliances for professional usage.
5. Viking Range
Viking Range Corporation is an appliance corporation based in the United States that partakes in the manufacturing of kitchen appliances for both home and commercial use. In the contemporary, the corporation offers three full product lines of first-class appliances comprising cooking, aeration, kitchen clean-up, and refrigeration, in addition to different outdoor appliances.
Conditions Leading GE Appliances to Implement Quality Control
Quality control alludes to a practice through which a business endeavors to guarantee that product quality is sustained or enhanced. Quality control necessitates the organization to generate an environment in which both the managers and the personnel yearn for perfection. This is carried out by trained and competent personnel, forming standards for product quality and testing products to examine whether there is any existent statistically significant changes (Hayes, 2020). A fundamental element of quality control encompasses the institution of properly defined controls. Significantly, these controls to aid in the standardization of both manufacturing and responses to quality issues. Restricting room for mistakes for the blunder by ascertaining which production activities are to be finalized by which employees diminishes the likelihood that personnel will be entangled in tasks for which they do not have sufficient proficiency and training (Hayes, 2020).
As a manufacturing company, some conditions impel GE Appliances to implement quality control. In the present day globalized marketplace, there are numerous amazing prospects for organizations, but, at the same time, significant risks. The conditions leading GE Appliances to implement Quality Control include:
1. Ensuring that the orders are filled effectively, before their dispatch
2. Substantiation of quality at the sources to guarantee that there are no defective commodities
3. Make certain that all of the products have met the agreed-upon specifications
4. Alleviate expensive import risk
5. Prevent tainting the brand name of the organization.
GE Implementation of Quality Control
GE Appliances undertakes quality control through product inspection. Being a fundamental component of quality control, product inspections enable the company to make verification of product quality on-site in the course of the various phases of the production process and before any of the commodities are dispatched. GE Appliances inspects its various products before them, leaving the premises of the manufacturing facility in a productive manner of precluding quality issues and supply chain interruptions eventually. Specifically, GE Appliances carries out checking of the products against the firm's already established specifications to meet a variety of requirements encompassing passing global benchmarks of the destination product market. For instance, when manufacturing products such as fridges and also air conditioners, the company can opt for particular specifications for the African market that might be dissimilar from the European market.
GE Appliances carries out quality control through the following processes:
1. Initial Production Check
This is an inspection that is carried out on the site before the onset of the production process, up until approximately 20 percent has been finalized. GE Appliances carried out primary inspections of all of the machinery, equipment, and materials that are to be utilized in the manufacturing process. This is the first phase that is undertaken by GE Appliances in guaranteeing that the quality of its products will be consistent and dependent throughout the production.
2. During Production Check
This is a quality control measure of checking on the production process on-site when approximately 20 percent to 80 percent of the production is finalized, and packaging is carried out for shipping purposes. In this phase, GE Appliances ensures that product units, for example, fridges, ovens, or microwaves, are randomly chosen from all of the completed batches of the production. This process is carried out to guarantee that that the company is following up on the original specifications and also whether the production process that was initially set is still on track. Moreover, GE Appliances conducts an assessment of whether the products are functioning as expected.
3. Pre-Shipping Inspection
This is a systematic inspection of units chosen randomly by GE Appliances personnel from all consignments of the orders made, carried out when the process of production is at least 80% finalized. GE Appliances carries out this process because it is deemed to be the last chance for the company to carry out remedial actions and measures before the finalization and packing of the production. Consequently, this makes it a productive tool to protect the company's products against exorbitant import risks. In all of the inspections, GE Appliances makes sure that it employs internationally recognized standards with key criteria such as product functionality, performance, durability, general appearance, and also dimensions. Once this is finalized, there are inspection certificates that are rendered if necessitated (Goh and Sullivan, 2011).
4. Container Loading Check
In this particular quality control process, the inspectors working for GE Appliances randomly choose different boxes of the consignment to have confirmation that every carton contains the number of product orders, that the quality is in line with the specifications, and that all of the samples have been approved of. Also, the process ascertains that all packaging material comprises of the fitting barcodes, cataloging, in addition to packing materials. This whole process is stringently supervised and monitored, thereby making certain that all product that is paid more is taken to the loading truck. As aforementioned, GE Appliances makes sure that it employs internationally recognized standards with key criteria such as product functionality, performance, durability, general appearance, and also dimensions (Trebilcock, 2020).
5. Product Monitoring
This process encompasses keeping the factory guilty from the beginning to the end. This implies an on-site production inspection carried out daily during the production process. In this regard, the inspectors of the company inspect and analyze the factory, implementing the specifications set, choosing units randomly for inspection an ascertaining, and eradicating any found defects. This ensures that GE Appliances is in control of the process as a whole.
Results of the Implementation of Quality Control
The quality control implementation process enabled GE Appliances to win the award of assembly plant of the year in 2019. According to Weber (2019), it was ascertained that in 2019, the hardest working refrigerator factory across the globe is GE Appliances' facility situated in Decatur, AL. Imperatively, it has been part of the OSHA VPP Star program for over two decades, and its products are constantly ranked as number 1 in terms of reliability and quality by consumers (Weber, 2019).
Profit or Productivity Improvement
Owing to quality control processes, GE Appliances has been able to work on its profits and productivity levels. For instance, in 2018, one of the company's plants situated in Mississippi, was experiencing a loss of up to 15 percent of its output as a result of production defects. However, owing to quality control, the company has been able to enable the facility to diminish its losses by over 60 percent thus far, saving millions of dollars (GE Appliances, 2019).
Future of GE Appliances. How has the success of the implementation affected the plans of the company going forward?
The future of GE Appliances seems to be bright. Having been acquired by Haier, the company has a greater platform of manufacturing great appliances and reaching an even wider consumer market. In recent months, GE Appliances proclaimed a $62 million investment to partake in the expansion of its production of appliances in Louisville. This will enable the company to manufacture even more appliances such as refrigerators, washers, dryers, and also dishwashers. This investment demonstrates GE Appliances' dedication to continually improving and expensing its manufacturing footprint in America to render services to more consumers in a faster and more effective manner. Furthermore, GE Appliances plans on increasing its production level and maintaining high-quality levels to become the top appliance company in the United States (GE Appliances, 2020).
References
General Electric. (2019). Annual Report, 2019. Retrieved from: https://www.ge.com/sites/default/files/GE_AR19_AnnualReport.pdf
GE Appliances. (2020). Our Community. Retrieved from: https://www.geappliances.com/our-company/
QIMA. (2020). What is the Product Inspection? Retrieved from: https://www.qima.com/quality-control-services/product-and-manufacturing-inspections
Goh, A., Sullivan, M. (2011). How To Conduct Quality Control With Chinese Manufacturers. Business Insider.
Weber, A. (2019). Assembly Plant of the Year: Refrigerator Production Heats Up at GE Appliances. Assembly. Retrieved from: https://www.assemblymag.com/articles/95217-assembly-plant-of-the-year-refrigerator-production-heats-up-at-ge-appliances
Trebilcock, B. (2020). GE Appliance: Pulling the digital thread. Logistics Management. Retrieved from: https://www.logisticsmgmt.com/article/ge_appliance_pulling_the_digital_thread
Flannery, R. (January 15, 2016). Haier To Buy GE Appliances For $5.4B In China's 2nd Big U.S. Acquisition This Week. Forbes. Retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/russellflannery/2016/01/15/haier-to-buy-ge-appliances-for-5-4b-in-chinas-2nd-big-u-s-acquisition-this-week/#2a6118503c24
Hayes, A. (July 28, 2020). Quality Control. Investopedia. Retrieved from: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/q/quality-control.asp