-- Chrysler Group LLC officials know quality sells, and they've set on an aggressive path to improve vehicle reliability to boost sales.

To that end, they have instituted sweeping changes within the company to catch problems early and correct them faster than in the past.

"We have one quality plan with specific goals," Doug Betts, Chrysler senior vice president for quality said Wednesday. He added that while Chrysler execs are unhappy finishing at or near the bottom of recent reliability studies, those don't take into account improvements over the last year and a half.

To correct some of the longstanding problems, Betts and his team have consolidated quality efforts and revised how they measure problems and fixes for those issues.

He said he wants to match the quality of the best competitors by 2012.

In the past, 200 Chrysler employees worked on quality issues. But they were scattered across departments and all operated under different plans.

Not anymore. In January, all the departments were merged and 1,500 employees are now working toward new goals under a single master plan, and they're measuring their efforts with new metrics including 320 new measurements.

The automaker also has implemented manufacturing standards that are tighter than in the past.

Betts' role is critical to the company's turnaround and particularly its image with consumers, which has taken a beating recently.

"More than a third of Chrysler models are much worse than average," Consumer Reports magazine reported in its annual reliability ratings survey.

The Jeep and Dodge brands finished in the bottom five, and Chrysler was dead last.

"Quality is central and can make or break a purchase decision and whether the consumer will even look at your product," said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor.

He said Chrysler is taking the right approach, adding that it's important that Chrysler engineers will be geared to speedy fixes, and no longer be pointing fingers.

Equally important is ensuring that quality is designed into the vehicle in the first place, Cole said.

Betts said the company is using computer-aided graphics to evaluate what vehicles, or even just parts of vehicles, will look like in different circumstances, helping them troubleshoot problems before production begins.

Chrysler already is seeing results, Betts said.

Warranty claims have declined 30 percent in the last 18 months, he said.

But that's not reflected in surveys such as Consumer Reports, which uses data going back three years and includes the low marks from the 2007 model year vehicles, which saw a spike in problems.

Fixing those issues is particularly crucial for Chrysler "because they are starting from behind," Cole said.

And it is one of the things consumers will respond to when making purchase decisions.

Quality must improve if Chrysler is to "conquest people who haven't considered our brands," Betts said.