How has FMEA and QFD been adapted for Consumer Goods?

B

BethP

#1
I work for a company that designs consumer goods, outsourcing the manufacture to the Far East. The company has a lot of quality initiatives underway including requiring QFD and DFMEA for all new product development projects (typically 8-12 new products are launched per year, with lifespan of product 12-18 months). Efforts have also been made to require manufacturers to complete PPAP. While these processes are powerful, they feel heavy for a company that has 1) no intention of undergoing ISO certification; 2) aggressive development timelines; 3) poor document management capabilities.

I came across this statement in the FMEA overview on the Cove "The concept that personnel and equipment are interchangeable does not apply in the modern manufacturing context of producing consumer goods. The manufacturers of consumer products established a new set of priorities, including customer satisfaction and safety. As a result, the risk assessment tools of the FMEA became partially outdated. They have not been adequately updated since."

My questions are:
1. How have FMEA and QFD been adapted for consumer goods in your experience?
2. What are the bare essentials to ensure quality for new product development in consumer goods?
3. Practically speaking, is APQP relevant for consumer goods?

Thank you for your help with my questions. The Cove is a valuable resource for me as I've learned about the Quality discipline.
 
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B

BethP

#2
Any consumer goods QA people out there to help with my questions?

1. How have FMEA and QFD been adapted for consumer goods in your experience?
2. What are the bare essentials to ensure quality for new product development in consumer goods?
3. Practically speaking, is APQP relevant for consumer goods?
Maybe the lack of response implies the answer that APQP is not relevant for consumer goods :)
 

Jim Wynne

Staff member
Admin
#3
Any consumer goods QA people out there to help with my questions?



Maybe the lack of response implies the answer that APQP is not relevant for consumer goods :)
"Consumer goods" is a very broad category that includes everything from disposable diapers to automobiles. Nonetheless the general APQP process, perhaps with some tweaking, is applicable to just about any product development process. If you have more specific questions about application, feel free to ask!:bigwave:
 

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#4
I work for a company that designs consumer goods, outsourcing the manufacture to the Far East. The company has a lot of quality initiatives underway including requiring QFD and DFMEA for all new product development projects (typically 8-12 new products are launched per year, with lifespan of product 12-18 months). Efforts have also been made to require manufacturers to complete PPAP. While these processes are powerful, they feel heavy for a company that has 1) no intention of undergoing ISO certification; 2) aggressive development timelines; 3) poor document management capabilities.

I came across this statement in the FMEA overview on the Cove "The concept that personnel and equipment are interchangeable does not apply in the modern manufacturing context of producing consumer goods. The manufacturers of consumer products established a new set of priorities, including customer satisfaction and safety. As a result, the risk assessment tools of the FMEA became partially outdated. They have not been adequately updated since."

My questions are:
1. How have FMEA and QFD been adapted for consumer goods in your experience?
2. What are the bare essentials to ensure quality for new product development in consumer goods?
3. Practically speaking, is APQP relevant for consumer goods?

Thank you for your help with my questions. The Cove is a valuable resource for me as I've learned about the Quality discipline.
One of the points one picks up in pursuing the ASQ Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence designation is that using the technical terms of quality, especially the acronyms without referents, creates a "MEGO" response (My Eyes Glaze Over) in the workers and bosses with whom one is trying to communicate. Both we as professionals and our audiences of eager-to-learn nonprofessionals profit when we are able to point out the everyday analogies of quality topics and themes.

A simple analogy of Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) is the realization we are simply charting "What if . . .?" scenarios and creating some order by guessing at frequency and severity of possible "glitches." Given an operation involving consumer goods, one simply adds more (different) scenarios such as

  1. What if the factory suffers a disaster (man made or natural) and can't deliver acceptable product by the original due date? (Will we miss the market window? Will our wholesalers and retailers abandon us for competitors? What happens to the down payment we paid the factory?)
  2. What if our product (snowblowers) doesn't sell because there is no snow to drive sales?
  3. What if someone dies because of our product?
  4. What if a competitor finds a way to make a product of equal quality for much less cost?
  5. What if we load up on inventory and no one buys? (Ever see the remainder table at bookstores? Sometimes I browse the titles and read opening paragraphs and wonder who gave the green light to such dreck.)

Automotive APQP specifies three phases: Development, Industrialization and Product Launch. The most important thing sometimes left out of the discussions of Advanced Product Quality Planning is how to avoid the hubris of making a product which is perfect in every respect except no one can be convinced to buy one. It's the old fiction of "build a better mouse trap." In fact, dozens of "better" mouse traps have been designed and built (more than 4400 patents!), but folks still prefer to buy the same damn thing (design) my grandfather bought 100 years ago.

My advice:

Don't get so wrapped up in the terminology of quality that you lose sight of the process - Plan Do Check Act.
 

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#6
Which version of APQP are you referring to? The APQP process involves a few more steps. ;)
Lots of steps in each phase, but the thrust of my comment is that we consider the Big Picture, not the minutiae, and certainly not get tangled in defining "steps" versus "phases."
 

Jim Wynne

Staff member
Admin
#7
<snip>


Automotive APQP specifies three phases: Development, Industrialization and Product Launch.
APQP has five phases:

Plan and define the Program
Product Design and Development Verification
Process Design and Development Verification
Product and Process Validation
Launch, Feedback, Assessment & Corrective Action

My advice:
Don't get so wrapped up in the terminology of quality that you lose sight of the process - Plan Do Check Act.
It's not a question of terminology. APQP is pretty good product development and project management methodology for design and manufacturing, and as I said in an earlier post, it's adaptable to almost any type product development process.
 
M

Murphys Law

#8
In my industry, we do not do DFMEA for non-automotive products. We only do DFMEA for TS16949 and to be honest, we reluctantly use it as a quality tool. One positive thing we do in DFMEA is to do a running technology DFMEA that cuts across all products and then an addendum DFMEA for items /features local to that product.

For commercial products, we do a cut down version of DFMEA simply called 'risk assessment' that is a layman's RPN. Completion+ review is required at each stage of a 4 stage new product development checkpoint release.

We see QFD as having more potential in that a company we acquired was a heavy user of it, and our top management liked how it was used. I remain more sceptical about QFDs staying power as I have seen our management like something before and it gets forgotten a year later.

As for PPAP for non-automotive. We don't require it from our suppliers and for any non-automotive catalog components that we sell, we flat out refuse to support it. You buy a commercial part from us, you get only ISO9001 and items such as control plans, GR&R, FMEAs etc don't come with it.
 

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#9
In my industry, we do not do DFMEA for non-automotive products. We only do DFMEA for TS16949 and to be honest, we reluctantly use it as a quality tool. One positive thing we do in DFMEA is to do a running technology DFMEA that cuts across all products and then an addendum DFMEA for items /features local to that product.

For commercial products, we do a cut down version of DFMEA simply called 'risk assessment' that is a layman's RPN. Completion+ review is required at each stage of a 4 stage new product development checkpoint release.

We see QFD as having more potential in that a company we acquired was a heavy user of it, and our top management liked how it was used. I remain more sceptical about QFDs staying power as I have seen our management like something before and it gets forgotten a year later.

As for PPAP for non-automotive. We don't require it from our suppliers and for any non-automotive catalog components that we sell, we flat out refuse to support it. You buy a commercial part from us, you get only ISO9001 and items such as control plans, GR&R, FMEAs etc don't come with it.
If it's a catalog part, NOT custom for a single customer to its specifications, I wouldn't expect documentation of those processes as a customer either, BUT that doesn't prevent your company from tracking such stuff internally.
 

Chennaiite

Never-say-die
Trusted Information Resource
#10
1. How have FMEA and QFD been adapted for consumer goods in your experience?
I recently had some detailed study on QFD. Excusing a bit of subjectivity, I was given to understand that QFD is a very useful tool to correlate Customer requirements into Functional requirements which indeed is a must-do thing to kick start any design and development. FMEA again IMO is by far the most structured way of identifying, prioritizing and mitigating risk that a product or service is exposed to.

I am not from consumer goods, but what I can confidently say is that, as long as it is required to transform voice of Customer into voice of product, which I believe is applicable to any Business, and as long as it is required to ensure that possible failures in the product (and in turn Customer requirements) is addressed and controlled proactively, there is no reason why these tools cannot be applied. If the intent of these tools are met in some way or other, I don't mind calling it QFD/FMEA or otherwise. As such I have seen QFD/FMEA taking different forms and shapes in different Organization. Tools such as these are only ways and means of meeting Customer requirements and hence I believe they are not driven by ISO Certification rather by the Organizational needs.

I do understand the 'aggressive timelines' thing, but doing away with or pushing ineffectively the key development steps cannot be a solution. Something like product family or brand wise QFD/FMEA can be explored which can be quickly reviewed and updated if need be. Many of the sub steps of QFD and FMEA by its nature are not repeatable for every similar development and hence only the initial preparation will involve time and team effort.

3. Practically speaking, is APQP relevant for consumer goods?
I agree with Jim. Conceptually, it is applicable to any product development process.
 
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