APQP phases, sequential or in parallel?

[Noctal]

I am quite confused as to how the APQP phases should be handled.

On one hand the APQP manual seems to indicate that onply after the Management Support for each stage is completed should one advance to the next phase.

However I have seen mentioned in this forum that some of these activities do in fact run in parallel.

What is the consensus?

Noc

 

[Randy Stewart]

They can run parallel. Look at page 6 in the APQP Manual

 

[Noctal]

How would you read the first paragraph on page 19? "The tasks to be accomplished.....in the first two sections."


Noc

 

[Randy Stewart]

Think about this logically. Can you start ordering packaging without a product design? However, if you have your DFMEA and you know what the process flow is going to be, you can start on your PFMEA and Control Plan.
If you have produced a similar part, most of your earlier work is complete! Remember this is a philosophy to be adopted, but you do not have to re-invent the wheel each time you start a project.

 

[Noctal]

I agree with what you say.. its just the darn manual that at times isnt so clear.

Another thing I fail to grasp is the difference between the sequential vertical greyed out areas and the concurrent horizontal bars that are seen in every PQP Timing Chart. Can you try to explain?

Thanks,

 

[Randy Stewart]

The verts are a typical timing breakdowns of a car program. Keep in mind that they are trying to combine all 3 OEMs, so each customer may be a little different. Plus you are looking at about a 36 month time frame. It's simple, you're not going to have prototypes without program approval, etc. The horizontals just show you how the phases fall into the timing.
Attached is an Excel Spredsheet that calculates the Program Need Date (PND) based on your timing. You'll be able to see how things over lap. The formulas are in the cells, if you put a date into cell L5 you'll see the calculations.

 

[Noctal]

What is happening to us here is that we seem to be confusing the timing and activities of the verts with the timing and activities of the horizontals.

We mainly manufacture plastic components to meet customer defined specs. I think its safe to assume we dont have to do neither Part 1 nor Part 2 up until 2.13. However, we do have to plan our process development and subsequent activities. And it seems we are confusing process development activities with APQP activities.



Are the horizontal activities your normal, standard PD activities or are they meant to represent the APQP activities?


Thanks again,

Noc

 

[Randy Stewart]

This is a philosophy not a required timeline. What you are looking at is the big picture of how things fit together. You may have something similar happen (internally) once you receive the PO or job kick-off.
You say APQP doesn't come into play, for you, until 2.13, I would bet that your team wouldn't state something was feasible if they hadn't looked at 2.10 first or reviewed Engineering specs in 2.7. Would your company bid on a job requiring CMM checks without having access to a CMM (outsource or internal)? I don't think you would.
You can look at "try out" as the prototype phase and the PSW run as the "Pilot" phase.
You may not be design responsible so product design wouldn't fit, but the product development may fit in. You may be asked to assist the customer in "getting the bugs ironed out".

To really answer your question, they are normal & standard PD activities. However, they are very, very generic. They are generic functions mapped on a generic timeline as an example.

 

[Marc]

Here's a basic presentation showing the timeline with concurrent overlays.