Nissan scandal: Quality inspection problems existed for 38 years inspector's exam

Regarding Nissan Motor’s internal fraud scandal, on the 17th, local time, Nissan’s responsible person submitted an internal investigation report to Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. This report shows that the company's improper quality inspection problems can even date back to 1979. Due to the shortage of quality inspectors, factory foremen disguised apprentices as qualified quality inspectors to avoid irregularities being discovered.

According to a report by NHK News.com and the Wall Street Journal, Nissan Motor Co., in an internal report released by Nissan Motor Co., attributed the scandals that led to the suspension of production and domestic sales to the inadequacy of the quality of inspectors, and this problem has not previously been subject to management. attention.

Nissan said that the final inspection of cars was often completed by apprentice quality inspectors for decades, and this practice violated local regulations. The factory foreman disqualified the apprentice quality inspector as a qualified quality inspector to avoid irregularities being discovered by the supervisors who came to visit. The report also mentioned that improper quality inspection became a common phenomenon in the 1990s, but it can be traced back as early as 38 years ago (1979).

The report also found that there are problems in the quality inspection training within Nissan. At the end of the training, the answer was sent to candidates along with the test paper. Nissan also outlined measures that will be taken to solve the problem and said that it will slow down the production of Japanese factories before enough quality inspectors are in place.

It is reported that Nissan currently has 536 qualified quality inspectors. According to the current production speed, the company needs about 380 quality inspectors. However, Nissan said that it is still understaffed because some quality inspectors are in the factory and some are near retirement.

According to an earlier report by Overseas Network, on September 18, the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism discovered its internal fraud during the inspection of the Nissan factory, but after pointing out the problem, Nissan still allowed unqualified personnel to serve as quality inspectors. On October 19, Nissan Motor Co. announced that it will stop the sale of Nissan vehicles in Japan and stop the shipment of all six vehicle factories in Japan. On the 20th, Nissan stopped shipments to Japan, and the production stoppage time is expected to be 2 weeks. The impact of the scandal is not limited to Nissan, but also to its customers and subcontractors.

In recent years, "Made in Japan" has triggered a strong crisis of confidence. On April 20, 2016, Japan’s Mitsubishi Motors Corporation’s President Tetsuya Aikawa held a press conference admitting that the company’s four mini-cars had illegal operations in the fuel economy tests, involving a total of 625,000 vehicles.

On May 18, 2016, Suzuki Motors of Japan was suspected to have modified its fuel efficiency data. Subsequently, Suzuki Motor Co. acknowledged that the company had started testing fuel efficiency in violation of national regulations since 2010, involving 16 models including mini vehicles and small cars such as Alto, totaling 2.1 million vehicles. .

On October 8, 2017, Kobe Steel, Japan's third-largest steel company, admitted to falsifying some of its product's technical data and shoddy to deliver customers. The company falsifies some of its performance data, such as the strength of aluminum and copper products, and provides unqualified products to manufacturers in many fields such as automobiles, aircraft, military, and high-speed trains. Many Japanese auto companies, including Toyota, Mitsubishi, and Nissan also Be affected.