Premium quality brings premium safety
Our long-term professional and uncompromised approach to product quality has been a key element in building the trusted premium brand reputation of Nokian Tyres products. Consistent high product quality can be achieved only through systematic quality management processes. Nokian Tyres has not had any significant product recalls in 23 years.
The starting point for high quality is setting accurate, clear and relevant quality criteria. Our quality criteria are based on years of cumulative market data, dialog with our customers, as well as versatile technical testing and risk assessments. The target is to ensure that every Nokian Tyres’ customer and product user will have an excellent user experience both in short and long term.
The second element in the quality management system is to ensure that every product fulfils the defined quality criteria. This includes control processes for all key parameters, error-proofing system, 100 percent visual and uniformity testing of products as well as full traceability. Both detective and predictive quality analysis/control tools are in use.
Internal and external audits ensure compliance
Internal quality audits are used to ensure all processes operate in defined ways and also to identify opportunities for improvement. Internal audits are based on annual auditing plans and conducted by a cross-organizational teams.
Independent external audits serve in verifying fulfilment of requirements of international quality standards ISO9001 and IATF16949 (Automotive Quality management Standard). Certain key customers conduct also their own quality audits to verify compliance with their special requirements.
Our thinking is that every employee at Nokian Tyres is a decision maker on quality. For this reason, we run annual quality training programs for our employees and other quality relevant internal stakeholders. The focus of quality training programs is on operators and shop floor support teams. Typically, part of quality training is aimed at general quality topics and part of it on work-specific quality topics to improve understanding, skills and quality attitude.
Induction training for new employees and training in quality improvement methods, such as Kaizen and statistical tools for specialists and engineers have also high priority at Nokian Tyres.
If our customer or end user suspects a defect in a product, they contact the seller in most cases. It is also possible to consult Nokian Tyres’ technical customer service directly. Nokian Tyres uses dedicated IT tools to collect and analyze claim data from dealers and end users. Product-related feedback is carefully analyzed and used as input for further development of products and processes.