DETROIT -- Chrysler Group’s efforts toward quick improvements in quality include adding 200 engineers to its quality division, said Doug Betts, Chrysler’s quality chief.

He said Chrysler’s quality will match that of its best mass-market rivals by 2012. Betts called quality “a sensitive issue” for the automaker.

“I want you to know that we get it,” he said today. “We can’t expect to change our situation unless we change the way we work.”

Chrysler recently decided to add the extra engineers to its quality organization, Betts said. In January, the automaker had assigned 1,500 people to quality work, up from a previous team of 200.

Chrysler has adopted Fiat’s quality audit standards for vehicles in production -- standards that are stricter on fit and finish, Betts said. The automaker also has established a process for measuring quality as viewed by a third party, involving 320 measurements.

‘Matching the best’

“We expect to drive a growing business by matching the best mass-market competitors in quality, and we expect to do this by 2012,” Betts said.

Many of the initiatives to improve quality began when Betts, a former quality director for Nissan North America Inc., joined Chrysler in late 2007.

Since then, he has consolidated Chrysler’s quality control staff into one organization. When he arrived, the automaker had no definition of quality, Betts said, so establishing a definition was the first step.

By March 2008, Chrysler already had replaced its monthly corporate quality meetings with field visits to observe problems.

Betts, 45, also has helped simplify product development and pushed to eliminate midcycle redesigns.

‘Doing nothing’

In 2007, Chrysler spent an average of 71 days trying to get someone to agree to work on a specific quality problem. That was “71 days doing absolutely nothing,” Betts said.

So by January 2008, Chrysler had created 14 teams with the goal of reducing warranty claims. During the first nine months of the teams’ existence, the claim rate decreased 30 percent.

Independent organizations have long criticized Chrysler’s product quality. Last week, Consumer Reports said Chrysler fell to the bottom of its annual reliability survey.

The Chrysler brand finished dead last among 33 listed brands in the survey, with Jeep at No. 30 and Dodge at No. 31, finishing ahead of only Cadillac and Chrysler.

The magazine said more than a third of Chrysler models through the 2009 model year were “much worse than average” in reliability, based on its testing.

David Champion, senior director of the Consumer Reports’ automotive test center, told Automotive News this spring that Betts was making progress. He cited the 2009 redesigned Dodge Ram pickup as a higher-quality vehicle.

‘Right direction’

Champion said that if Betts “is allowed time -- and he doesn’t get too much internal resistance -- he could succeed. It’s going in the right direction.”

Betts said the improvement in warranty claims has continued. Next year’s Consumer Reports reliability report will not include data from Chrysler’s nightmarish warranty-claim rate during 2006, so the company’s reliability rating should improve, Betts said.

“We’re back on track now,” he said. “A recovery has been achieved.”