CASE

Progressive Engine Division

It was 4 oclock on Thursday afternoon of November 2019 and Richard Prendergast, Senior Supply Chain Manager for castings for the Progressive Engine Corporation of Woodstock, Ontario, had just finished a telephone conversation with an upset supplier. It was the fifth such call Richard had received in response to a letter he had sent out to his magnesium castings suppliers concerning a severe corrosion problem. All five had told Richard that they could not adhere to his request without a significant increase in their costs.

The Progressive Engine Division

Progressive Engine was a division of Progressive Products Corporation, a three billion dollar company that enjoyed a worldwide reputation for quality and innovation leadership in several product areas, including aviation, aerospace and industrial. In operation for forty years Progressive Engine Division had built more than 50,000 gasoline engines for a wide variety of commercial, industrial and military applications. Currently the majority of Progressives sales were in the commercial and general aviation markets, but the company had created a strategy to balance the revenues between the commercial, general aviation and military sales.

The Corrosion Task Force

In the summer of 2019, Progressive began receiving complaints from its customers concerning corrosion on gearboxes on the engines. The problem was significant and serious enough to warrant the attention of the Senior Vice President of Progressive, Mr. Floyd Timmerman. In order to resolve this problem and find a permanent solution Floyd created a Corrosion Task Force, which immediately solicited input from

• Supply
• Quality Assurance
• Manufacturing
• Engineering
• Production Control
• Materials
• Magnesium Corrosion Task Circle (reliability Circle)
  • This task force was established in 2014 to deal with the general problem of magnesium corrosion as part of Progressives Reliability Circles Program. The task force met as required.

The input solicited from this group was to suggest solutions to the corrosion problem, and make recommendations for implementing suggested changes to programs to eliminate or resolve the corrosion issue. The Task Force was under extreme pressure and Senior Vice President Floyd Timmerman to take immediate steps to resolve the corrosion problem on Progressives products.

Corrosion Free Magnesium Castings

The investigation by the Task Force determined that a large part of the corrosion problem was centred on the Tiger 550 engine and its magnesium castings. It also discovered that a significant proportion of the castings used in this engine were already corroded on receipt from Progressives suppliers. Rather than rejecting the corroded castings, Quality Assurance was processing them through for rework. The basis for this action was the need for parts to meet production schedules. It was believed that the delay that would be encountered by rejecting unacceptable castings would be more costly than the cost of reworking them internally by Quality Assurance.

The Task Force decided this process of reworking by Quality Assurance was no longer acceptable, nor desirable and directed the Supply Department to take immediate steps to ensure that Progressive received corrosion-free magnesium castings from its suppliers. As a first step in this direction, the supply department was further instructed to notify its castings suppliers of a previously issued specification M4181 would require strict adherence and the cleaning and corrosion prevention procedure prescribed in the this specification M4181 from Progressive would now be mandatory and was to be strictly adhered to.

Failure to meet the specifications outlines would result in rejection of all unacceptable castings. Alternatively, in cases as determined by Progressive to reprocess unacceptable castings in lieu of rejection, the supplier would be debited for the cost of the reprocessing work involved.

The responsibility of notifying the casting suppliers of this decision fell on Richard Prendergast, the Senior Supply Manager for casting. Given the urgency of the situation and the political sensitivity of the issue, Prendergast thought it best to send a letter to his current magnesium castings suppliers immediately. The letter he drafted and issued is shown in Exhibit 1)

Exhibit 1

Progressive Engine

Notification - Corrosion Issue

An intensive corrosion prevention program for magnesium castings has recently been undertaken by the Progressive Engine Division. An integral part of this program is the assurance that castings are corrosion free on receipt of shipment from our suppliers. This will require strict adherence to our previously issued specification M4181 as well as the following is requested:

Clean and Corrosion Prevention Procedures as per Specification M4181 and as follows:

12. After penetrative inspection, following heat treating, castings will be alkaline cleaned and hydrofluoric acid pickled
13. After the hydrofluoric acid pickle, castings to chrome pickle treatment, rinse and bake to dry at 300 degrees Fahrenheit (tolerance plus/minus of 25 degrees)
14. Dip castings in Rust Oil 8220 B and package for shipment
15. Package castings to ensure they do not come in contact with each other to eliminate rubbing away of protection

The responsibility to deliver corrosion-free magnesium castings per the cast drawing, engineering blueprint or MOT is placed with you, the supplier. Failure to do so necessitates an immediate rework at Progressive to stop the corrosion process that may ultimately scap parts. The costs incurred by Progressive for rework will be passed on to you the supplier in the form of a debit initiated by a Progressive engine Inspection Transfer Report (ITR). The ITRE will also have a negative effect on your firms quality rating with Progressive Engine.

Your support in this effort is imperative. Please forward the aforementioned procedure M4181 to the appropriate personnel in your company. If a copy of the specification/procedure is required do not hesitate to contact the undersigned.

Question regarding processing should be directed to Rudolf Darling, Quality Assurance Engineer at (519)-555-1234

Thank you.

Richard Prendergast

Senior Supply Chain Manager - Castings