Thank you bro, Since you are taking the discussion to a civilized level, I find myself obligated to provide my explanation to reciprocate your respectable response.
Let me explain how did my involvement in the professional automotive sourcing methodology for some of the biggest names in the automotive industry influenced my decisions
Automotive parts are sourced mainly led by
Pricing – Affected by cross boundary tariffs, profit margins between tier 1 supplier and its downstream vendors
Engineering specifications – Materials, tolerance eg. ISO 286-1:2010, production process design eg. Shearing, Rolling, expanding, leaking check, force fit, welding, D-FMEA, P-FMEA, too many to list down…
Operations – Production machines, layout, tool change, competence matrix, staff hiring etc.
Quality – IATF16949:2016 QM-System, VDA6.3 Process auditing, APQP, Statistical process control, MSA: repeatability, reproducibility, Production Part Approval Process, Supplier/ Customer quality, etc… I will not consider ISO9001:2008 for rim manufacturing
1. Brands determine the rims we get and not country of origin.
2. To me, after filtering the brand, its factories that satisfy the basic requirement of IATF16949:2016 only makes it for the next level of selection.
You can normally find these information online for example:
a.
https://www.certipedia.com/quality_...ficates?certificate_type=IATF+16949&locale=en
b.
https://www.ozracing.com/world-of-oz/367-certifications
3. After that, check for scandals involving particular models if there has been a widespread of problems that cannot be solved. This is indicative of a failure in the APQP which can only be ascertained by a VDA6.3 audit doing P2 – P4 which some factories’ quality teams don’t do when there is proven competence.
Professional Conditions that personal level cannot resolve:
4. After these are resolved, I look at the mass of the rim and design. These are indicative of the engineering team’s ability to capture market’s inclination and design something the market wants. The selection of specs and criteria determines the type of product they want to release into the market. In order to be clear, the PPAP must be audited by the engineering team. VDA6.5 product audit is suitable for this. PPAP is a legal binding engineering document that directly reflects the actual product but accessibility is limited only to the engineering, quality and litigation team in the case of disputes. It involves patents and mutually agreeable solutions like the inspection AQL which can be very costly if the stringency is heighten. I see normally people use AQL2.5 for rims but some may want to bring it up to 0.65. The dimensional requirements are important especially the polar array of mounting holes that need to conform to PCD defined. The long term process stability in the production sticks to >=1.33 for CpK but sometimes, process capability reaches way more than that and when customers see a reduction albeit the passing CpK results, they will still make noise.
5. Under professional conditions, I will dispatch a Supplier Quality representative to the site to audit on the processes that we are going to buy the parts for. But obviously this is not possible under private context. So I will fall back to the brands at step 2.
Conclusion:
Made in Taiwan/China/Japan does not matter. What matters is the brand, the engineering, quality, operations and support processes behind it..
You might be glad to know that SSW that are produced in Thailand possess the necessary QMS standard to clear Step 2 above. Check via
https://iatf-customerportal.org/ with the IATF certificate number
Standard: IATF16949:2016
Certificate Nr: 01 111 064941
IATF Certificate Nr: 0329057
Certificate holder: Stamford Sport Wheels Company Ltd
111/2,5,8,9 Moo 2 Highway 340 Suphanburi Road, Tambon Saiyai, Amphur Sainoi, Nonthaburi 11150, Thailand
Validity: 5 Sept 2021
Scope: Design and Manufacturing of Aluminum Alloy Wheels
With the IATF16949 standard awarded, SSW should also be producing rebranded aluminum alloy wheels for the local vehicle plants like Toyota and Honda for processes that are located in Thailand to avoid the cross boundary tariffs.
It is a safe rim to buy for all available standards to discern. But you still have to take note of the specifications each rim provides. Eg. Rim mass, density, material selection which continues to elude end users. So keep your ears open for scandals SSW might have, end user feedbacks,
ALWAYS LET SOMEONE ELSE BE YOUR COMMANDO take their feedback and lessons learnt.