GM quality chief seeks better owner experience

LOS ANGELES — Being quality chief at a major automaker used to be fairly straightforward: Try to figure out what broke, study the part and every move on the assembly line, then change the part or the way people or machines work to fix it.

The process might involve investigating a glove-compartment door that inadvertently pops open. Or tracking down a trunk rattle. Or analyzing a misaligned panel. Or launching a probe into sticky power windows.

Alicia Boler-Davis, senior vice president of Global Quality and Global Customer Experience, is expanding the customer experience  John F. Martin for General MotorFullscreen General Motors CEO Dan Akerson and GM Senior Vice President Alicia Boler-Davis at a gathering to celebrate GM receiving a record number of J.D. Power and Associates Initial Quality Study Awards Wednesday, June 26, 2013 in Warren, Michigan. GM won more awards than any other automaker. (Photo by Steve Fecht for General Motors)  Steve Fecht Steve Fecht for General MotorsFullscreen Alicia Boler-Davis take a public role in her job as senior vice president, Global Quality and Global Customer Experience  Joe Wilssens for General MotorsFullscreen Chevrolet Sonic sedan and hatchback, created under management of Boler-Davis  BRIAN KONOSKEFullscreen Alicia Boler-Davis with the Chevrolet Volt  John F. Martin for General MotorsFullscreen Chevrolet Sonic LTZ Hatchback Inferno Orange  John F. MartinFullscreen Alicia Boler-Davis, the first person to be plant manager and vehicle line executive/vehicle chief engineer simultaneously at GM  KATHLEEN GALLIGAN Detroit Free PressFullscreenLike this topic? You may also like these photo galleries:ReplayAutoplayShow ThumbnailsShow CaptionsLast SlideNext Slide

Today, however, life is far more complicated for executives such as Alicia Boler-Davis, who was named three months ago to the post of senior vice president, global quality and customer experience for General Motors. That's because customers' definitions of what constitutes quality have expanded.

"People don't define quality as things breaking anymore," she explains over breakfast at a hotel here.

That more nuanced definition of quality might include instrument panel knobs that work just fine, but people don't like the way they feel in their fingers.

These issues now land on the lap of Boler-Davis, 44, a veteran GM executive who rose to the job from running an assembly plant less than two years ago.

Her duties now run from the stamping of the sheet metal to customer experiences at their local GM dealer. She has worldwide authority, making sure the same quality procedures are being carried out in China as they are in Detroit.

To make the task somewhat manageable, she has set two overriding priorities:

•Drive quality. She wants customers to feel better about how well a vehicle rides, sounds and handles. You can't just! ask them! what feels best, she says. "Customers don't always know what they want."

New technology is helping set those benchmarks. For example, evaluating ride quality traditionally was pretty much up to the judgment of a chief vehicle engineer. Now, there is sophisticated testing equipment that can decipher the stiffness or squishiness of a ride. "We're taking the subjectiveness out of ride quality," Boler-Davis says.

•In-car connectivity. Across the auto industry, customers have complained loudly — and downgraded makers in quality surveys — over the lack of ease and intuitiveness in the operation of the sophisticated navigation and entertainment apps going into cars, controlled by voice or touch-screen. Boler-Davis says trying to deal with them is her "biggest challenge."

But GM placed near this top this year of J.D. Power and Associates' Initial Quality Study, while rival Ford Motor, which touts its MyFord Touch connectivity system, took it on the chin for complaints about the infotainment system.

One way that she hopes to handle such issues: GM has created a pool of 50 "in-vehicle technology experts" who can troubleshoot customer problems in 85% of the U.S.

Boler-Davis is an engineer — a chemical engineering graduate from Northwestern University who went on to a master's in engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She joined GM in 1994 as a manufacturing engineer for midsize cars.

Though she held a variety of positions over the years, she caught the attention of CEO Dan Akerson when she took on the jobs of not only as manager of the Orion Assembly and Pontiac Stamping plants in Michigan, but as executive in charge of the new Chevrolet Sonic subcompact, which is made at Orion.

Sonic was a particular challenge, because it marked the first time in decades that GM would try to profitably build a subcompact car in the U.S.

She comes to the job while GM is on a roll when it comes to quality. Consumer Reports magazine, the non-profit that for years h! as critic! ized GM vehicles compared with their Japanese rivals, named the redesigned 2014 Chevrolet Impala as the best sedan in the U.S. — better than Mercedes-Benz's, BMW's or Lexus' offerings. It also named the redone 2014 Chevrolet Silverado as top pickup.

And GM rose markedly in J.D. Power and Associates Initial Quality Study this year, one of the industry's most closely watched quality barometers. Boler-Davis says she's pleased that when she talks up GM quality, people don't just have to take her word for it anymore.

Even though it's finally a good time to be GM's quality chief again, Boler-Davis says she recognizes that quality is a moving target.

"We need to anticipate based on the trends."