We were not alone. Nissan set up a Supplier Development Team which consisted of six Nissan Improvement Engineers, assigned to help suppliers improve supplier performance. Available to us, Nissan also ran a series of measures on suppliers.
QCDDM Quality, Cost, Delivery, Development and Management.
We learned a lot for feedback of performance. Quite direct and not always welcome truths on our performance.
Q1
Ford developed a quite demanding, hard-hitting, merciless (Unyielding, Unrelenting, Unforgiving - the Ford way!) quality assessment system, called Q1 following their AJ program. This was After Japan, following taking a controlling stake in Mazda. Ford management were visibly shocked at what they saw! In USA and Europe, Ford discovered, they were years behind.
TPS
Once Toyota established themselves in Burnaston, they set up similar supplier development teams to Nissan, but with a focus on teaching their suppliers the Toyota Production System. Indeed Jeff Armitage, Les Tustin and I spent two weeks at Toyota Consulting in Toyota City, Japan. Eye-opening… awesome… mind-boggling.