OCTOBER 2019
     

'The cause of many complaints"

CARAVAN Council of Australia founder and general manager Colin Young has turned the spotlight on RV builders and compliance requirements.

He poses the question: Caravan quality-assurance program ... does the manufacturer of your caravan have one?

He believes that they are "sadly lacking" in the industry, which is said to be worth around $19 billion.

"The legal requirements for manufacturers of caravans and camper-trailers for ensuring full compliance and high quality are exactly the same as those for motor vehicles, aren't they?

"Well, if chalk and cheese - and day and night - are exactly the same, then the answer is yes.

"However, they are not the same, nowhere near it!

"That is the major reason why caravans and camper-trailers have so many problems and why owners have so many complaints."

Mr Young has written the following article on the subject.

Manufacturers of motor vehicles must have approval from Vehicle Safety Standards (VSS) in Canberra to affix compliance plates to their vehicles. This is not a simple process.

Before a motor vehicle model can be offered for sale in Australia, detailed credible documentation proving that it complies with all applicable Australian Design Rules (ADR) must be submitted to VSS for examination.

If the documentation is accepted as demonstrating full compliance, a comprehensive Single Uniform Type Inspection (SUTI) is conducted on a production vehicle to confirm that the vehicle's ADR-related components do accurately match the documentation supplied.

Approval is then granted to affix compliance plates to all vehicles of that specific model.

To be confident that no changes have been made, and that compliance continues, Conformity of Production (CoP) random audits are regularly conducted by VSS personnel.

With regards to compliance, manufacturers of caravans and camper-trailers can simply affix trailer plates to their vehicles via the accepted scheme of self-certification.

And for quality, manufacturers of motor vehicles are legally required to have a professional Quality System Documentation (QSD) program in place.

Manufacturers of caravans and camper-trailers have no such legal requirement.

The aim of any Quality Assurance (Q-A) is to best-ensure that all production products are fully "fit for the intended purpose" and comply with all applicable laws and standards, and with recognised engineering practices.

The Purpose of a Q-A program is to:

Assist the company in providing products and services of the highest quality.
Ensure compliance with all applicable legal regulations, such as, for caravans, VSB1 and the ADRs.
Help protect against litigation and recalls by ensuring the company is not negligent.

The intent of a Q-A program is to "do things right the first time" and have a zero-defects target.

Some Q-A programs aim to guarantee that all production units are exactly the same as the "master sample".

This is fine … unless the sample has unknown defects, in which case all production units will have the identical shortcomings.

It is of fundamental importance that the Manufacturer displays a meaningful Quality Policy statement, that all employees are fully acquainted with.

The key elements of a Quality-Assurance program relate to:

Products:

Technical Drawings.
Work Instructions.
Materials.
Specifications and tolerances

Processes:

Equipment.
Procedures.
ADR/VSB1 component inspections.
Capability.
Reliability and maintenance.
Quality planning and process-control plans.
Stage - and final - inspection check-lists.

People:

Skills and ability.
Education and training.
Responsibility and involvement.
Effectiveness.

For caravan and camper-trailer manufacturers, the four most essential items for compliance and quality confidence are:

Technical drawings:

Need to be neat professional CAD illustrations clearly showing - with dimensions - where all components are to be located.
Need to be provided for each basic operation and not be cumbersome in an attempt to cover numerous operations.
Accurate and durable templates need to be used for critical operations.
Perspective (3-D) drawings can greatly assist in enabling operators to clearly visualise the "overall picture" of an operation.

Work Instructions:

Need to be neat professional guidelines clearly showing - in numbered step points - how the particular manufacturing or assembling
operation is to be carried out in a safe and correct manner.

Need to be used (where applicable) in conjunction with the relevant work instruction.

VSB1 Components inspection:

While all incoming components need to be inspected, special attention must be paid to all prior to being released for production.
Ensure components that are subject to VSB1 legal regulations are fully-compliant and that no changes have been made.

Inspection Check-Lists:

Stage - Need to be a number of professional (YES/NO numbered) list of major "stage" operations so that any fault can be detected, and rectified, without it passing through the entire manufacturing process, thus causing a difficult and interrupting rectification.

Final - Needs to be a comprehensive professional (YES/NO numbered) list covering all compliance, equipment functions and quality items.

This should form the basis of a pre-delivery inspection (Check-List for a dealer to complete) prior to handing-over the caravan to a customer.

It is vital that all drawings, work instructions and check-lists:

Have the latest master copy filed, with an index, in the Quality-Control folder.
Are up-to-date, approved, signed and dated by the production manager/engineer.
Are protected by being laminated inside plastic sheets.
Do not have any "notes" scribbled on them.
Have all obsolete copies collected and removed from the manufacturing area.
Have all VSB1-related issues highlighted to ensure continued compliance.
Are clear and unambiguous and are presented in a plain key-point format.

The documents must be sufficient to enable any - suitably trained - (stand-in) operator to be able to under-take and complete a particular manufacturing or assembling operation without having to "guess" about "how or what should I do next"?

This especially applies to operations where all caravans "need to be made exactly the same", such as drilling holes and forming cut-outs in the body, positioning lamps and reflectors and the layout of wiring, tubing and fittings.

Using professional check-lists will greatly assist in ensuring that every customer will receive a fully-compliant and high-quality caravan.

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