Case Study: GE Transportation cuts cost of quality 35% and slashes defects with ETQ Reliance

Mastering Supplier Quality to Drive Down Quality Costs

GE Transportation, now part of Wabtec, is a leading North American maker of diesel‑electric locomotives and related rail equipment. In 2010 the company faced chronic early‑life product failures that cost roughly $100M per year and had no clear root‑cause visibility — its quality environment was fragmented across 30 different tools in 60 locations, with limited analytics or supplier integration.

GE formed a cross‑functional team, standardized global quality processes and implemented ETQ Reliance as a single enterprise QMS that integrates supplier PPAP, ERP/MES and legacy systems. The consolidated platform (30+ integrations, real‑time production kiosks, an RCP supplier portal) enabled analytics and control across 5,000 suppliers; daily concurrent users grew to ~600. The result: defects per unit fell, cost of quality dropped about 35% (tens of millions saved), and regulatory compliance and continuous‑improvement capabilities significantly improved.

GE Transportation

Sara Hanks

Senior Manager, Data and Analytics