What is Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) – DataMyte

Customer satisfaction is always on top of every business’s priority list. As someone who runs the business, It’s your job to make sure your customer is happy with your products or services. However, complex products and supply chains can potentially present possibilities for failure, especially when you’re trying to launch a new product. Fortunately, there’s a solution to dealing with these issues: Advanced Product Quality Planning – better known by its abbreviation, APQP.

This article will talk about Advanced Product Quality Planning and why it’s essential. That way, you will know why it’s important to incorporate one for your business.

What is APQP?

Advanced Product Quality Planning is a framework that provides a structured approach for developing and launching new products. The main goal of APQP is to ensure that the product meets the customer’s expectations in terms of quality. In turn, it provides customer satisfaction with new processes or products. 

APQP has been in practice for decades, initially referred to as Advanced Quality Planning (AQP). Most progressive companies use APQP to ensure quality and overall performance through keen and systematic planning. Most household companies use the Advanced Product Quality Planning handbook for product development. 

The primary goal of APQP is to facilitate the production of a new product that meets or exceeds the customer’s expectations. The process begins with identifying the customer’s needs and ends with feedback from the customer after receiving the product to achieve this goal.

APQP also supports early identification of change, both incidental and intentional. These fundamental changes can potentially result in exciting innovation that supports customer satisfaction and business success. If you don’t manage your APQP correctly, it can translate to the opposite of your goal, which is product failure and customer dissatisfaction.

Why Implement APQP?

Advanced Product Quality Planning benefits both businesses and customers. We’ve already talked about how it can result in customer satisfaction, but there are other benefits as well.

Synchronized Quality Standards

One of the most important benefits is establishing a common language for quality across the organization – from engineers to production workers. This way, everyone is on the same page regarding quality assurance. Additionally, it provides a framework for measuring progress and quality. This is important because it allows businesses to track their progress, identify potential problems early on, and make necessary changes.

Prevent Costly Reworks

Another benefit of APQP is that it helps businesses avoid rework. Rework can be costly, not just in terms of money but also in time. By using APQP, businesses can avoid rework by identifying potential problems and addressing them early on. This saves time and money and results in a better product.

Keep Up with the Competition

Last but not least, APQP helps businesses become more competitive. To stay competitive, companies need to innovate and produce new products continuously. Using APQP, businesses can ensure that their products are of the highest quality and meet customer expectations. This not only helps businesses stay competitive but also ensures customer satisfaction.

The 5 Phases of APQP

Advanced Product Quality Planning is a framework that has five phases. The five phases are as follows:

• Phase I – Plan: This phase includes the development of the product concept, product design, and process design. To ensure quality, businesses need to understand what they’re trying to achieve clearly. This phase also includes the development of quality objectives and the identification of key characteristics.
• Phase II – Product Development:

  In this phase, the product is developed and tested. 

• Third Phase or Phase III – Process Development:

  In this phase, the process is developed and verified. 

• Phase IV – Feedback and Corrective Action:

  This phase includes feedback from customers and corrective action. 

• Phase V – Launch:

  This phase includes the launch of the product. 

As you can see, Advanced Product Quality Planning is a comprehensive framework that covers all aspects of quality assurance. Therefore, using APQP, businesses can ensure that the products they offer to their customers are of the highest quality based on their company’s quality standards. Additionally, APQP helps businesses avoid rework, save time and money, and stay competitive.

Why is APQP Important?

As you may already know by now, APQP is quite a big deal in the business world. It’s important because it helps businesses produce products that meet customer expectations in terms of quality. If you’re an OEM that’s dealing with multiple suppliers and their sub-tier suppliers, APQP provides the following:

• Product conformity across the board.

• Faster product time to market.

• Elimination of customer-facing quality issues and returns.

• Reduced number of engineering changes post-launch, thus faster time to market for said changes.

• Able to hold suppliers accountable with clear expectations upfront. 

• Mitigates supplier manufacturing process failures (reducing scrap/rework).

• Visibility into supplier process capability and potential improvement areas.

• Supplier performance measurement over the product life cycle.

• Compliance with customer requirements (and any regulatory agencies).

If you’re an OEM supplier, then your customers are likely already mandating that you have an APQP in place – and if you don’t, they will be soon.

The DataMyte QPS Cloud

If you’re planning to incorporate Advanced Product Quality Planning into your business operations, it’s best to use online software that can help you get things going. DataMyte’s Quality Planning Studio is a comprehensive analysis software that integrates APQP. This premiere cloud-based quality planning studio provides tools and features for planning, documentation, and controlling your overall quality requirements. 

The DataMyte QPS cloud integrates the core quality tools and adheres to fundamental process flow steps. This single, integrated software tool is ideal for managing and executing your quality plan while meeting customer requirements.

For more information on how you can get started with DataMyte QPS Cloud, visit our website or contact us today!

Conclusion

If you’re looking to improve the quality of your products, then Advanced Product Quality Planning is the way to go because It gives your business the edge it needs to produce products that meet customer expectations in terms of quality. Again, if you need any help getting started with your APQP, the DataMyte QPS Cloud will be more than happy to assist you. Visit our website or contact us today for more information.

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