Introduction

Abstract

AT JAGUAR Cars, an inspector on a vehicle quality surveillance audit stands listening to an instruction asking him to check the boot lid. He observes that its alignment relative to surrounding panels is correct and speaks into a microphone: ‘OK’. At an adjacent audit stand an inspector who is working on another car is asked to look at the boot lock and finds that it does not work. She speaks: ‘Fault Inoperative Alert Final Complete’. As she speaks, the information is automatically transmitted by radio to a computer which processes it and records it in a data bank for quality analysis. Shortly afterwards a message is broadcast on a television monitor in the final assembly zone where boot locks are fitted to the car, warning operators to check the functioning of locks. A message is also transmitted to the downstream rectification area with an instruction to seek out and replace the faulty lock, and also to check the locks on other cars in the present audit batch going down the line.