Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F13

FIXED OPS JOURNAL

NISSAN
continued from Page 12

loud, share ideas and take notes.
"Problem-solving is its own reward for a lot
of personality types," says Brad Page, manager
of Fixed Right First Time support. "The fact
that it makes a customer happy is a huge benefit as well."

Losing the path
The Pathfinder's computers have identified
several trouble codes. The dealership tech in
San Juan followed Nissan's diagnostic and repair procedures, but couldn't fix the stalling.
He contacted the Tech Line, which checked to
see whether other Pathfinders had shown
similar problems. When a solution remained
elusive, the last line team took over.
A further complication: The dealership technician doesn't speak English. So Roberto Aponte, a technical support specialist, dons headphones and translates the tech's comments as
last line members Tim Greaux, Cody Collins
and Paul Legnon examine the diagnostic data.
"Those guys are up for it," Page says. "If they
can't get to the bottom of [a problem] after a
while, there is an elevated stress level. That's
just their competitive nature. Eventually,
they'll work it out."
Nissan North America's 1,350 dealerships in
the United States and Canada perform about
99 percent of all repairs without contacting
the Tech Line. That center handles most problems quickly and easily; often, a tech has
skipped a step or misdiagnosed a problem.
But cases such as the stalled Puerto Rican
Pathfinder demand greater attention.
Last year, a Nissan corporate directive made
fast, correct repairs a priority. The automaker
wanted not only to boost its dealerships' customer satisfaction scores, but also to improve
its internal processes for identifying problems
before they triggered technical service bulletins, or worse, recalls. Nine times each day,
Nissan reviews the data that service writers
list on repair orders.
"As soon as that [order] is put in the system,"
says Jerry Puetz, who manages Nissan's field
quality improvement, "Nissan headquarters
can grab it and look at the service writer's report, put it through an algorithm, and bounce
it off all the data we know about already."
Nissan assigns 22 technical service managers to visit dealerships, mostly examining
problems on vehicles that are less than eight
months old. Their reports go to company engineers, suppliers and plants. Tech Line members see the reports in as few as two days -

Members of Nissan's Last
Line Defense Team confer
with a tech in Puerto Rico
about a repair problem.

PHOTOS BY A&M PORTRAITS

down from a previous 30 days, Puetz says.

Detective work
While last line members puzzle over the
problematic Pathfinder, 10-year master technician Matthew Mead fields a Tech Line request from Russ Darrow Nissan of Milwaukee.
A new, diesel-powered Titan XD is displaying
a slew of trouble codes. A warning light shows
the diesel exhaust fluid to be low, even though
the tank is full.
Mead exchanges notes with the dealership
tech, reviews the truck's diagnostic data and
examines reports of similar problems. In
about 45 minutes, he identifies the problem: a
faulty fuse.
Another Tech Line case involves a Nissan
Sentra with an engine compartment rattle at
about 2,000 rpm. The problem is traced to
loose bolts on an exhaust manifold heat
shield. The plant in Mexico where the car was
built gets a report within hours. Nissan instructs the plant manager to determine how

the car had been shipped with the defect.
Finally, the last line team identifies what's
wrong with the Pathfinder: a slipping clutch
in the transmission. The dealership tech will
replace the transmission and ship the faulty
component to Smyrna.
Nissan engineers will put the bad transmission in a vehicle, test it and then disassemble
it. They will look for a cause: possibly a supplier's faulty part or a manufacturing error.
Several times each year, Nissan invites master dealership technicians to Smyrna to see
how the Tech Line and last line team work.
There are plant visits and a tour of Nissan's
consumer affairs call center, where agents
field customer comments.
Nissan calls the program Corporate Immersion with Technical Information Exchange
Shadowing, or CITIES. Its goal is to show
dealership technicians how best to use Nissan's diagnosis and repair processes.
"We are trying to show them we are here to
help them," says Jackson Hisey, the manager
of Tech Line. "We are not teaching them how
to fix a car. We are not teaching them how to
measure something.
"We are teaching them that they have resources behind them," Hisey says. "And that
we care. A lot of times, a tech thinks the factory doesn't care - that we are just trying to
take money out of their pockets. We're not.
We're in the fight with them." 

APRIL 2018

PAGE 13



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018

Contents
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - Intro
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F1
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F2
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - Contents
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F4
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F5
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F6
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F7
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F8
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F9
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F10
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F11
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F12
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F13
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F14
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F15
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F16
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F17
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F18
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F19
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F20
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F21
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F22
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F23
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F24
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F25
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F26
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F27
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F28
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F29
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F30
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F31
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F32
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F33
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F34
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F35
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F36
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F37
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F38
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F39
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F40
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F41
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F42
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F43
Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F44
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