The Quality Blog

Suppliers and their products and services impact are growing at most of my customers. A problem that has surfaced is managing the change that a supplier might make to their process and understanding how that change might affect the customer. Automotive PPAP process has been around for a long time setting rules for change when it is or is not permitted. The supply chain and the risks that are present due to noncommunicated change are quite high and any supply chain management process must keep change at a minimum. If change is required, managing that change requires a technical risk assessment like an FMEA Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. The FMEA provides the oppurtunity to understand the change and its effects typically before we are committed to the change.

A supply chain strategy must have change rules and strict adherance to those rules included for it to be effective.

Portsmouth England is great this time of year, weather is great the waterfront is busy and overall a great place to visit. I am working however, and the FMEA work being performed is on a military training activity. FMEA in training you ask? The FMEA process is very useful in determining probability of success of meeting trainee requirements, assuring false training is not going  to happen and the appropriateness of training is assured. Today’s event slugged through several functions looking at the design elements of the training design. The customer was also present, which is generally a good idea when a good relationship exists.

It is important to note that customers who are not familiar with this type of event can become very uneasy as risk is highlighted. The team may also mask risk so that it is not exposed to the customer while they are present. But if explained properly, the risk can be viewed as the substitute for future failure that can be reduced or mitigated with counter measures increasing the liklihood that success is achieved.

I just arrived in London this morning for an FMEA project and have to say the new seats on the delta (boeing 777) flight were quite nice. Almost fully flat and the beat the old northwest shell seats that i am used to.

We are now offering Six Sigma training online for a fraction of the cost. This is only the content, but we can also get you certified with some mentoring and classroom training.

Supplier developoment is one of 5 supply chain management elements in our strategy. Within supplier development there are several key aspects that require attention.

1) Procative activity (relationship and communication)

2) Reactive Capability (how quickly and effectively we respond to issues)

3) Prevention Activity (ongoing process of preventing problems through various approaches)

With these three things in mind a supplier development strategy at the individual supplier level or across all suppliers in a strategic chain is necessary to get full value.

In order to achieve higher velocity in product development, it is important that the process be dynamic. Since success is the anti function to failure, failure should be an integral part of Lean PD. More importantly the finding of potential failure and the counter measures taken to eliminate it either by error proofing, or collaborative design measured by process capability. (Cpk)

APQP or Advanced Product Quality Planning is a simplified version of a product development process that has been made available to the supply chain of the automotive OEMs. After close inspection, it becomes apparent that the automotive companies wished to provide a PD process to the supply chain that links the supply chain activities to the Original Equipment Manufacturer’s Product Development Process. The APQP process has a bad reputation in that many people do the tools but not in a linked fashion. In other word as a checklist for conformance. The true practioner will utilize each tool that makes sense for the application of what is being done.

Tools should be selected based on :

New Content (Design or Process)

Past Failure

New Environments

The tools selected become part of a Product Assurance plan, or what is called in APQP the Product Quality Plan. This plan is different for differing applications. I will comment on the details of the plan in my next blog entry.

We have made available our web based course for Yellow, Green and Black belt training. These courses are quite good as many companies have purchased this content to use as their own. As an educator and trainer, I am aware of the need for a real interactive trainer to be available to teach a course, and these materials can be used in a classroom as well as by an individual. The pricing on these is extremely agreesive as I am hoping to make good content available to all who wish to learn.

This is not a substitution for good classroom training, but, like a book, this material can give you a greater understandning of Six Sigma and allow you to prepare for the Six Sigma certification process. If anyone wished to take a six sigma class, we can make those arrangements as well.  Link here for Black Belt, if the link does not work, paste into your browser.

 http://www.quality-one.com/products/wbt_ssblack.php