TOKYO (Dec. 26, 2013) — Volvo Cars has recognized Bridgestone Corp.'s Bridgestone Europe (BSEU) unit for its commitment to “quality and excellence” with an award from the Volvo Cars Quality-Excellence (VQE) program.
Hiroyuki Osaki, managing director at Bridgestone's Poznan manufacturing plant in Poland, received the VQE Award on behalf of the tire maker on Oct. 22. The award, according to the company, recognizes the plant and its employees' achievement in obtaining an A-rating in the following 12 domains:
1. Full ISO and commodity specific certification;
2. Manufacturing site assessment;
3. Lean deployment assessment;
4. MMOG/LE (Global Materials Management Operations Guideline Logistics Evaluation, the global standard for supply chain management processes that reduces costs from errors, waste and workload for suppliers and customers.)
5. Site 6 month PPM vs. target;
6. Logistics—communications and delivery performance;
7. Customer plant impact;
8. Escalation;
9. Stop shipment;
10. Field action;
11. Trust; and
12. Customer endorsements.
Mr. Osaki said the VQE Award “is further recognition of our commitment to delivering the highest possible quality, safety and performance for all our customers and, ultimately, all road users. It is a wonderful achievement and I thank and congratulate all of our employees for making it possible.”
BSEU said its Poznan factory is the first tire manufacturing plant to receive the Volvo VQE Award—occurring just one year after the company began making tires for Volvo.
An official awards ceremony was held Dec.18 at the Volvo Cars headquarters in Sweden.
BSEU's European headquarters is in Brussels, Belgium. The subsidiary operates an R&D center, eight plants and offices in more than 30 European countries and has more than 13,000 employees.