Has Proton Improved On Product Quality? Here’s Proof Of Which

Proton recently held a detailed press briefing outlining its quality improvement efforts performed over recent years at both its Tanjong Malim and Shah Alam plants.

National carmaker Proton recently held a press briefing at its main Tanjong Malim plant in Perak recently. During which, the carmaker’s quality improvement efforts undertaken at said plant, as well as its other plant in Shah Alam, Selangor, were detailed at great lengths. 

With big developments in store to turn the areas surrounding the Tanjong Malim plant into a high-tech auto hub, this first step towards which naturally began internally with Proton’s own production efforts. Details presented in the briefing sat in showed promising figures and stats, as well as several other interesting details.

According to Proton’s Deputy CEO Roslan Abdullah, the quality improvement efforts the carmaker performed in recent years stemmed from three strategic aspirations:  (1) being Malaysia’s No. 1 carmaker, (2) being amongst the top three carmakers in the ASEAN region, and (3) achieving consistent quality by adopting global standards.

No less than 800 employees have been charged to drive this effort, says Proton execs.

This mission saw up to 800 Proton employees charged to drive this effort, of which the end goal for them is to maximise customer satisfaction. Four critical areas were focused upon, those being engineering and project quality, followed by supplier quality, then production quality, and lastly, market quality.

Leading things here is Proton’s ability to produce new models efficiently and effectively thanks to the adoption of the New Product Development System (NDPS) – a global standard for project management. Here, stricter gate reviews were implemented, and this is the stage where potential quality issues early on in a vehicle’s development are identified and resolved.

NDPS also ensures new models launched meet high quality standards. Through this approach, Proton notes that market concerns ratio index (percentage of vehicles with customer concerns/cases) within the first 100 days from launch has dropped to 2% when the new S70 debuted last year. In contrast, the CKD X70 model that debuted in 2020 held a higher 6% figure.

Slides detailing the quality improvement efforts undertaken by Proton in recent years.

Engineering quality, on the other hand, calls for Proton to adopt new trends into its production process, most notably in the Connected, Autonomous, Shared and Electric (CASE) vehicles front. This is also meant to ensure technological-readiness of Proton’s products – both current and upcoming new ones.

Presently on the tech side of things, 4G connectivity is enabled across the automaker’s current line-up – barring the entry-level Saga model, of course. This will soon switch to 5G tech by 2030, says Proton. Also, Level 2 semi-autonomous driving tech is present across the X50, X90, and new S70 models. Soon, the updated 2024 model year version of the X70 joins this list too.

Details on the car-sharing side of this appear uncertain, but Proton’s resolve towards electrification is. As reported, the national carmaker plans to have its first full-electric offering launched by next year (2025) and arriving alongside which around the same time too are new plug-in hybrid (PHEV) offerings.

Aptly, Proton's quality improvement efforts covered a lot of angles and areas, and it sees a lot of new global standard implemented at practiced at various stages and avenues besides production - some are practiced in the development stage too.

For supplier quality, Proton now employs both Advanced Project Quality Development (APQP) processes and Product Parts Approval Process (PPAP) – new global standards. The PPAP front even includes essential tools to develop, produce, and distribute parts that promises to meet customer satisfaction.

Next comes upgraded suppliers’ capabilities through the introduction of QASA (Quality Assurance System Audit). This annual supplier quality performance audit practice ensures sustainable product quality through advanced process control. For this, Proton notes that it registered a 43% increase in the number of vendors capable of meeting a minimum QASA standard.

As for production quality, here’s where partners Geely contribute significantly using its Global Customer Product Audit (GCPA). Here's where defects in new vehicles are measured. Since its implementation, Proton notes massive improvements in its GCPA score, as it lowered the number of defects detected from 6,388 to just 1,329, and close in on benchmarks set by Geely in 2019.

Proton even conducted a demonstration of its GCPA inspection process that's performed on 1% of daily approved (qualified/'lulus) units. As you can see, it's a proper white glove affair and very detailed.

GCPA scores are generated through inspections of 1% of the daily approved (qualified or ‘lulus’) vehicles that have cleared pre-deliver inspection (PDI) stage. Here, each audited unit sees its safety, security, and general function tested. On top of which, performance evaluation, as well as a static evaluation of perceived quality, are carried out too.

With GCPA, Proton has reduced the score achieved in 2019 further by 55%. Do the math and it should see the detected defects figure reduced and amount anywhere between 500 to 600. Crucially, this scoring system is also a transparent one, evident through Proton’s willingness to disclose figures on its product quality improvements – something it elected not to do in past years.

Finally comes market quality, which is where Proton gauges a car’s quality after it is sold. Here, Proton essentially scans for defects reported post-launch, and take steps to resolve them. Detection of which post-launch is done via Initial Stage Control (ISC) within the first 100 days after launch, warranty claims analysis, daily market quality meeting, not forgetting sentiments on social media too.

Part of the inspection even includes a brief but thorough test-drive around a test track, which Proton's Tanjong Malim plant has. Here, tested vehicles are scanned for non-static defects and more. 

Since this practice was implemented, Proton says it observed drastic reductions of up to 44% in warranty claims within its 12 months in service product reliability index. The national automaker even adds that up to 1,005 post-launch issues has been resolved since 2019 – said period lasting roughly five years.

With everything we just detailed, perhaps it explains how Proton’s product quality you see, and experience today has transformed over recent years. Crucially, things promise to get even better over time, which will hopefully mean seeing and hearing far less complaints from future Proton owners about the quality of their cars.

Well, what do you folks reckon? Is Proton on the right track? What else do you reckon it could do better to improve its product quality? As usual, share your take on things in the comments section below, as well as our social media pages…