At the same time, the car companies are demanding lower prices from suppliers. Another culprit is the complexity of modern autos. Development time that would normally be used to seek out problems has been cut from nearly four years to as little as twenty-six months, albeit with the aid of computer design and manufacturing. Having been there and witnessed this in circumstances that few, if any, automobile journalists have been permitted to observe, I can attest to a messianic drive for reliability. Think about it.
Accountants force quality shortcuts.
Scheduling cuts, demanded by marketing, compress development time. Engineering complexity adds to manufacturing costs. Suppliers become integrated component sub-manufacturers. Company lawyers advise against letting the consumer become the end-tester, so the automaker gets the squeeze, as it should, and rather than risk defamation of character, to say nothing of costly lawsuits by liability lawyers, recalls the product. It happens when everyone from Chairman, to line worker, to shareholder, agrees that Priority One must be quality of product, regardless of cost.