Buyers shun poorly built caravans
Australian RV industry needs to lift its game when it comes to quality controlCOMMENT
To say that the RV industry has had a hard time lately is an understatement. Like many parts of the retail sector, RV sales have slowed as buyers either can’t borrow money under tightened lending criteria or have simply decided to hold onto their cash amid concerns about rising costs and stagnant wages growth.
It’s not exactly a light-bulb moment to say that consumers feel uncertainty about the economy generally. This has been the case for a while now, as we’ve seen in the RV industry, with a few RV manufacturers feeling the pinch and either selling up or pulling out of the local industry entirely.
That’s not the only problem facing the industry though. Like other sectors — the banking sector for one — the RV industry has recently come under the microscope for unfit-for-purpose products or poor treatment of consumers.
Consumer protection and oversight of the RV industry has been weak too, although that is slowly changing -- for example, Queensland has tightened its ‘lemon’ laws and while it has been criticised for being delayed, the Federal government wants to introduce better standards compliance.
How can the RV industry blow away the pungent whiff of shonkyness around it?
According to Colin Young of the Caravan Council of Australia, one way to clear the air is effective Quality Assurance.
Quality Assurance may sound like yet another meaningless phrase invented by a bunch of administrators with too much time on its hands, but it's actually a worthy process for manufacturers who employ it successfully.
In essence, QA is a series of checks and balances used by, in this case, the RV manufacturer, to ensure that it has designed its RV properly and builds it to the highest standards possible.
The idea is that if you’re a manufacturer who spends time and money developing and effectively using a QA program, not only will you save on wastage and improve design and manufacturing efficiency, you’ll build a consistently well-made product that won’t fall apart on the customer and require expensive remedial work -- or tangle the company in expensive litigation due to a shonky build resulting in a serious safety breach.
Sounds like a win-win, doesn’t it?
However, Young said that very few RV manufacturers in Australia have effective QA programs in place.
Young sited the example he’s seen first-hand, of workers laying electrical cables through a caravan during a build that another worker, whose job it was to secure cabinetry, has then unintentionally put staples through the wiring with a staple gun!
That kind of error is a time-bomb ticking; with a caravan body flexing slightly a short circuit and electrical fire are just a couple of disastrous possibilities. Because there was no initial design drawings of where cables and staples should go (that is, not together), and no clear instructions for workers on where exactly to fit them, potentially dangerous errors like this occur.
The QA process in the RV industry should, according to Young, involve accurate technical drawings of the RV, clear work instructions on how to build it, VSB1 component inspection and inspection check lists.
Things are very different in the world of cars and trucks.
Young is an automotive engineer, and has worked for federal and state governments to ensure compliance in the automotive industry, where he said regulations were much stricter than in the RV industry. He explained that car-makers are effectively legally forced to have an effective QA program so that they can pass government inspection to sell their vehicles in Australia.
“Manufacturers of motor vehicles must have Approval from VSS (Vehicle Safety Standards) in Canberra to affix Compliance Plates to their vehicles," he said.
"This is not a simple process. Before a model can be offered for sale in Australia, detailed credible documentation, proving that it complies with all applicable ADRs (Australian Design Rules), must be submitted to VSS for examination.
“If the documentation is accepted as demonstrating full compliance, a comprehensive SUTI (Single Uniform Type Inspection) is conducted on a production vehicle, to confirm that the vehicle's ADR-related components do accurately match the documentation supplied... [and then] ...CoP (Conformity of Production) random audits are regularly conducted by VSS personnel” to ensure compliance continues."
What does a caravan or camper-trailer manufacturer have to do to affix a compliance plate of their RV? Nothing, under VSB1’s self-certification scheme.
A well thought-out and effectively implemented QA program is a no-brainer for a company producing RVs. It’s a way of ensuring you’re making the best product possible.
That’s the kind of stuff that builds brand loyalty and boosts sales, and so surely QA is the kind of investment worth making in an industry in which some players are battling for credibility among consumers.
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