Now a days the manufacturing organizations as well as many others such as the automotive organizations for example, are lines of business developing in the middle of the most competitive environment a business can actually experience.
The main reason that enforces this competitive atmosphere particularly for this two different lines of business, is that they are frequently facing the challenge to achieve three basic goals that every company in this line of business has, which need to be reached simultaneously in the best case scenario; keeping in mind the fact that such goals are equally as important and hard to achieve.
Therefore we can say that companies in the same line of business as automotive and manufacturing ones, are constantly prompted to:
1. Offer high quality products which are obviously expected to excel the costumer’s needs and quality standards.
2. Have the ability to generate a sustainable volume of high quality products at all times.
3. Deliver products and / or services always in a timely manner.
It is with this particular situation in mind, and in aims of helping as many products and services providers as possible that Quality Management System a.k.a. QMS standard ATF 16949 came to be, for it was developed in hopes of helping as many companies as possible to achieve the three basic goals we have previously mentioned.
It is also important to mention that ATF standard also has some specific expectations that must be properly fulfilled, in order to do so, and as a support for this standard, there is also a set of what we call QUALITY TOOL ESSENTIALS which are no less than a number of different techniques and value added methods that enforce the easier achievement of the three core goals every company looks forward to accomplish.
The five Quality Tool Essentials that we refer to are:
1. Advanced Product Quality Planning: which means, to utilize various different methods and techniques, in order to ensure a product quality, this may involve:
A Pre planning or input phase
Plan and design (at this point it is important to consider VOC. Or Voice of Costumer) preferably in written to be considered as achievable requirements). At this point as well establish BOM (Bill of Material) in order to make your process planning much easier. Among various other details.
2. Design Failure Modes &Effects Analysis: which allows the company to pinpoint and recognize any area that might represent a risk and take the necessary troubleshooting actions a.k.a. Error proofing.
3. Measurement System Analysis (MSA): used to determine how feasible it is a certain evaluation technique for each part of the process.
4. Statistical Process Control (SPC): Refers to a series of statistical techniques used when in need to understand certain behavior of a specific system.
5. Product Part Approval Process: (PPAP): it is a standard process, mainly applied in Aerospace and automotive companies as a way to guarantee in written that the final product complies with every specification requested by costumer and /or company.
