What is APQP (Advanced Product Quality Planning)?
Advanced Product Quality Planning is a structured approach to product/process design that brings together the essential planning activities all automotive OEMs require into a singular process.
APQP is utilised by OEMs to bring new products/processes to successful validation, achieve customer satisfaction, and drive continuous improvement.
APQP joins together a cross functional team helping to facilitate effective communication and collaboration between different engineering departments within your organisation.
Utilising a unique APQP template process helps ensure that the voice of the customer is plainly understood and successfully translated into requirements, technical specifications, and special characteristics.
APQP utilises risk-based tools and methods that focus on all areas of new product/process design to help mitigate the risks associated with them.
By focusing on risk instead of responding to failure, it allows your organisation to mitigate and correct risks instead of waiting for failure to occur during the testing stage or with your customers.
Your APQP template process can be used either manually on something like a spreadsheet, or you can automate it with APQP software such as Jomo247.
What are the benefits of using an APQP Template?
Utilising an APQP Template can help create many benefits for your organisation including:
- The most efficient directing and use of time, labour, and resources.
- Helps promote the early identification of change whether it be intentional or incidental.
- Anticipates and prevents potential failure helping you to avoid implementing significant changes post release.
- Ensures you produce the highest quality product/process on time and at the lowest possible cost.
- Enables you to capture and reuse best practice from areas that went well during the APQP process.
- Encourages effective communication and collaboration throughout the entire organisation.
What is an APQP Template?
An APQP template outlines all the essential steps that your organisation must perform to ensure that you successfully develop new products and processes, whilst effectively mitigating the risks involved to ensure you produce the highest quality product at the lowest possible cost.
The APQP template will never be identical business to business and will vary according to your organisation’s specific requirements and objectives.
Our free example, which you can download below provides a rough outline of how your APQP template should work, but you should also be sure to tailor it to the specific requirements of your organisation for the best results.
How to create your own APQP Template?
To create your own thorough APQP template, you will want to begin by considering what the scope of the process is and the objectives you want to achieve with it.
For an APQP template, your main objective is to successfully develop new products and processes whilst effectively mitigating the risks involved to ensure you produce the highest quality product on time and at the lowest possible cost.
The APQP process is commonly split into 5 distinct stages, however, in our example we have chosen to separate the APQP process into 6 distinct steps.
These are:
- Prepare for APQP
- Plan & Define APQP
- Product Design & Development
- Process Design & Development
- Product & Process Validation
- Feedback & Assessment
Each of these 6 steps then has a variety of corresponding tasks listed in the checklist below the workflow diagram.
Each of these tasks must be completed successfully before you can move onto the next step of the process.
These tasks do not have to be completed sequentially but should be approached and tackled concurrently by your cross functional team. Remember to tick each task off the checklist once it has been completed.
Using Jomo247 to create your own APQP template
When creating your own APQP template, you may prefer to use traditional methods that will allow you create a basic image of your template and checklist.
However, we recommend using a software like Jomo247 that not only allows you to fully design and customise your APQP processes and forms but also link and automate them with ease.
If you are interested in reading more about automation, click here.
Once your APQP Template design is complete, it is now ready to be implemented into your daily operations.
Remember it is crucial that you constantly monitor new processes that you have implemented in case corrective action is required.
Undertaking and evidencing the continual improvement of your processes is essential to ensuring that your organisation successfully meets the requirements of IATF 16949:2016.
