Process Ownership - APQP shall be be led by Design & Development Dept?

[uzaimi - 2008]

I am Head of QA/QC Dept. and aslo QMR. Since I know well APQP requirements, I was assigned as APQP Team Leader, also because the word quality is there. As a results I was heavily involve in the new part development. My role seem taken over Design & Dev. Dept.
How can I convince my top management that APQP shall be be led by Design & Dev. Dept? Is there any matrix to show it ? Please help me out.

 

[The Moose]

I am Head of QA/QC Dept. and aslo QMR. Since I know well APQP requirements, I was assigned as APQP Team Leader, also because the word quality is there. As a results I was heavily involve in the new part development. My role seem taken over Design & Dev. Dept.
How can I convince my top management that APQP shall be be led by Design & Dev. Dept? Is there any matrix to show it ? Please help me out.

Hi Uzaimi,

As you will be well aware (although not neccesarily your managment) APQP is a "tool" to be used by design and development not a role in itself, its key aims (imho) is error prevention through planning of the key phases and through use of appropriate techniques (FMEA, MSA etc), as such APQP has to be controlled by the department which controls the project.

In our company the APQP process belongs to Engineering and is seen as a key part of the New Product Introduction process and as such is ultimately owned by the Engineering/R&D manager, it is driven by the person (Engineer) who ultimately controls the project and who utilises a multidisciplinary team to meet the project requirements (and also by TS 16949)

 

[Howard Atkins]

Welcome to the cove and the club.
This is probably one of the biggest problems and of course you are right.
If you look at the APQP handbook page 3

Effective quality planning involves more than just the quality function.

Most of the tasks are not the responsibility of quality rather engineering or production engineering but the engineers are as we know "not organised enough" and in the end you have to organise the documents etc.

The question is how do you see the APQP team leader. This can be an administrative position of project management or it can involve more. As the team leader you can be responsible for calling the meetings and following up that actions are taken- a type of audit of the process. The actual tasks are performed by the responsible for these actions.

In the end the engineers are the project managers and should really manage their project of which APQP is the automotive method of managing the project.

In the end you need to sell the APQP process as a tool for designing the process and as such the design should be managed by the function that best represents the design process.
I wish you the best of luck and keep us informed of your actions.