DCP Volunteers at The Children’s Center

Detroit Chassis gives back to the community in many ways, and one of the efforts supported is The Children’s Center (TCC). The services they provide are vital to the enrichment of our community. The team volunteered at the 2023 Shop Event and assisted TCC in servicing 1,213 children from 406 families. Savvy Sliders Corporate Office provided food for all the DCP volunteers and the TCC staff.

“Thank you to everyone who took time out of their holiday season to participate in making this a joy and inspiration-filled experience for families. Thanks to the Ford Fund and Ford Motor Company, The Children’s Center was featured on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on December 19th. The Episode featured an F150 Lightning full of gifts, and TCC was selected as the partner organization receiving the gifts…The Ford Fund will add $10,000 to The Children’s Center grant to cover the cost of all of the holiday gifts… ”

Dennis Edwards, President at Detroit Chassis and member of TCC’s executive and the S-Fund committees, brought his leadership team to volunteer during TCC’s holiday shop. The group spent the entire day on campus greeting families, assisting families in picking out gifts, restocking the store, and organizing donations. We greatly appreciate Dennis for his stewardship and leadership!!

Nicole Wells Stallworth, CEO, The Children’s Center

DCP’s Customer Joy

The Detroit Chassis “Customer Joy” Survey in July reflected performance for the previous six months and delivered a rating of 91%.

The performance rating remained steady since the last poll, with 44% of F-53 and 50% of F-59 manufacturers responding.

The survey revealed that manufacturers are adapting to following the Ford processes for customer concerns like reporting miss-builds when items are missing from the dunnage box but appreciate the way DCP previously handled these requests.

The rating’s sustainability is mainly due to DCP’s heightened focus on quality. Multiple customers favorably mentioned the noticeable difference.

State-of-the-Art Technology Command Center with Real-time Reporting

Detroit Chassis recently showed its new Command Center to visitors from an OEM automotive manufacturer and Commercial Step-Van Body Builders, and they were highly impressed.

This change is a dramatic move in the right direction away from the antiquated manual process that involved hours of tedious collection of paperwork, copying documents, distribution, and manual input. Maurice Lucas, Data Analyst, came aboard and quickly discovered opportunities to eliminate wasted time and energy by eliminating the old way of doing things, introducing the possibilities of a new process.

It involved training Quality Inspectors on the use of Tablets. Though met with resistance initially, they all agree that implementing this new technology helps them do their job. For example, Janice Johnson, Quality Team Leader, and Rob Colvard, Manufacturing Team Leader, were hesitant to use the new process when first introduced. Still, now they see the value in entering information that gets communicated in real-time, allowing
the organization to move quickly and respond to issues.

It works like this: Real-time data gets captured in Airtable for Downtime and Quality. Data is transferred from Airtable to a SQL database which then feeds the Tableau Analytics Website accessible online from your computer. This technology allows Operations, Quality, Engineering, and Materials to see issues as they occur to focus on driving Interim and Permanent Corrective Actions. The Team appreciates the system’s ability to track the problems by Zone, Workstation, Inspector, and Associate to determine the fix and reduce downtime and defects.

Great job, Team and thank you, Maurice! We appreciate your Silicone Valley thinking that propelled DCP forward. Our Command Center is a cutting-edge breakthrough and will help us achieve World Champion performance.

This process improvement is only one of the ways Maurice contributed to the Team. He also helped automate the data analysis process for Customer Service. Unfortunately, we will miss him as he returns to California. Still, we know that he will hold us in his heart, and though he will be miles away and living in a different time zone, he can continue to make a positive impact remotely.

Thank you for your contributions to the Detroit Chassis Team.
The Best Motorhome Chassis is Built in the Motor City.