APQP Supplier Perspective
The Problems
Supplier organizations are required to be registered for the ISO/TS 16949 standard in order to continue doing business in the Automotive industry. Evidence that the supplier is carrying out an APQP process is needed to fulfill many of the requirements in this standard. Suppliers are also faced with keeping down costs, so they must avoid expensive manual processes in the development and management of critical APQP documentation needs.
Does this problem sound familiar?
The Needs
Organizations that are implementing APQP with their customers need to be able to effectively execute the following:
- Develop and control documents called out by the APQP standard– This implies both the development of documents that meet those called out in the standard, as well as the underlying processes needed to support the quality plan, and be able to keep them up to date with the latest changes.
- Review impact of change to existing documents – Changes can have a major or minor impact. The quicker the impact can be assessed, the quicker the impact can be mitigated. Tracing a change from document to document can be a very manually intensive process.