Today, product quality is one of the most critical uptake or purchasing factor for consideration by customers. Product recalls due to serious quality and reliability concerns can ruin brand reputation or put companies out of business. Less serious problems may result in customer dissatisfaction, loss of sales, high cost of poor quality and a delay in the launch of a new product.
Marketplace pressures to continuously deliver high quality products in shorten period reduces development time and increases risks of potential failures. Furthermore, new product failure uncertainties remains present throughout Product Development Process (PDP) – from the specification of requirements in design to build variation in manufacturing and aftermarket operation. Therefore, companies across the automotive sectors have to give priority in uncertainty characterisation and propagation in the development of zero-defect and failure tolerant designs and robust manufacturing processes to minimise and eliminate risks of quality failures.
3. Contents
3
Introduction 5
Key Today’s Challenges in Vehicle Quality Engineering 6
Many Ways Systems Fail to Function or Meet Requirements 7
Assuring Product Quality Robustness in the VDP 8
Early Cycle Product Development Failure Mode Prevention 9
Designing Failure-Tolerant Products 10
Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) Quality Management 11
FMEA Provides Many Benefits
There are Many Types of FMEA’s
Effective FMEA Deployment and Principles
FMA Process Flow
FMA Model and Rational Approach
Quality Risk Management is Getting More Important 19
Risk Analysis is not Easily and Commonly Incorporated
Common Delivery Pitfalls
Oversight and Quality Assurance
Examples: 23
Toyota Proactive Preventive Technique
How Porsche Ensures the Quality of its Products
Summary 25
How SSCG can help? 26
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
4. Are you sometimes puzzled by
new products that suddenly fail
in customers’ hands, despite
successfully passing all
verification test procedures?
What could have prevented it?
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
5. Introduction
5
Vehicle Quality and Reliability
are Key Megatrends and plays a
key role in maintaining customer
satisfaction. Appeal, reliability
and service determine quality as
it is perceived by the customer
throughout the entire product
experience.
Today, product quality is one of the most critical uptake or
purchasing factor for consideration by customers. Product recalls
due to serious quality and reliability concerns can ruin brand
reputation or put companies out of business. Less serious problems
may result in customer dissatisfaction, loss of sales, high cost of
poor quality and a delay in the launch of a new product.
Marketplace pressures to continuously deliver high quality products
in shorten period reduces development time and increases risks of
potential failures. Furthermore, new product failure uncertainties
remains present throughout Product Development Process (PDP) –
from the specification of requirements in design to build variation in
manufacturing and aftermarket operation. Therefore, companies
across the automotive sectors have to give priority in uncertainty
characterisation and propagation in the development of zero-defect
and failure tolerant designs and robust manufacturing processes to
minimise and eliminate risks of quality failures.
Uncertainty must be the focal point and inherent part of PDP if
companies are to improve product quality and reliability. To prevent
failures and improve process reliability, companies must follow key
best practices:
PDP is a simulation of future production and consumption
Greater importance in product detail consistency
Product performance integrity
Quality is a source of competitive advantage.
https://www.daimler.com/products/passenger-cars/mercedes-benz/a-class-kecskemet.html
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
6. Key Today’s Challenges in Vehicle Quality Engineering
6
Late failure mode discovery is costly to
implement countermeasures
Stringent regulatory requirements and customer expectations are
placing increased demands on companies for high quality and
reliable products. The increasing capabilities and technical
functionality of many products are making it more difficult for
manufacturers to maintain superior quality and reliability required.
Traditionally, reliability has been achieved through extensive testing
and use of techniques such as probabilistic reliability modelling.
These are techniques done in the late stages of development no
longer suitable for today’s fast paced business environment.
For vehicle manufactures to succeed in the current competitive
market place over the long run, have to offer value driven
competitive products or services than their competitors.
Today’s market pressure points and challenges:
Design integration of quality early in the PDP to prevent failures.
Competition to offer higher value quality products with cutting
edge features and functionality.
Performance - Product that outperforms their competitor.
Reliability – Products that meets/exceed markets and operating
constraints.
Process realignment for efficient, create more synergies,
accelerate innovation and improve quality.
Increasingly complex vehicle technologies call for human and
intuitive operation.
Make vehicle as fuel-efficient as possible while at all times
conforming to safety, design, quality and performance
requirements.
The Next Level in Early Cycle
Quality and Reliability Assurance
Management
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
7. 7
While the Vehicle Development Process (VDP) may be viewed
from many perspectives, it is a series of complex processes and
decisions thus can be posed to complex multidimensional
problem and to generate potential quality failure modes.
Uncertainty are present throughout the VDP. Hence, establishing
early cycle failure mode avoidance and prevention measures is a
critical to eliminate later discovery.
Failure Mode Identification
A component / subsystem / system MUST consistently perform
its intended function in the presence of uncontrollable
influences (Noise Factors), including:
Piece-to-piece variation
Product changes over useful life
Customer usage and duty cycles
External environment
System interactions with adjacent components
Ways which failure modes are
manifested
No Function
Partial – Over/Under Function:
Degradation
Intermittent Function
Unintended Function
Many Ways Vehicle Systems Fail to Function or Meet Requirements
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
8. Assuring Product Quality Robustness in the VDP
8
Quality can be broadly defined as meeting customer expectations,
conformance to standards, legislative and production tests. Robust
integration of uncertainty and failure modes early in the VDP phase
can limit risks both relative the business and products.
Clear and well defined details supported by well governed reviews
are critical to ensure product design quality robustness:
Voice of the Customer Market Research: Stated and unstated
Compatible product specs, requirements and quality attributes
Product Development (PD) project scope and resources
Quality history reviews and capture Lessons Learned
Quality Risk Assessment
Procedures, systems and techniques that increase PD efficiency
and efficacy
Manage design and process change
Manufacturing quality assurance plan
Engineering talent and skills
Common advance quality planning underlying principles:
Robustly defining customer requirements and expectations
Early detection, prevention and control of failure to reduce
escapes
Reduction of cost of poor quality: Customer dissatisfaction,
warrant and recalls, production FTT failures, rework, complaints,
potential arbitration, lost royalty and sales
Forge effective cross functional quality management and
oversight
Effectiveness Foundation
Requirements and Principals
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
9. Early Cycle Product Development Failure Mode Prevention
9
There are many opportunities to detect and prevent
failure modes early in product development phase.
Late failure modes discovery is costly to remedy and
require more countermeasures, with limited analysis
and deployment time.
Failure modes can be detected early through:
Thought experiments (e.g. FMEA, Design Review)
Engineering Standards and rules
Virtual analysis (CAE, CFD, State Flow Models, etc)
Physical testing.
By understanding product lifecycle operating
conditions and variables can facilitate to:
Better understand the key performance factors
and thus develop better countermeasure.
Identify improvement opportunities.
Quality requirements must be robustly
defined and clear at the start of
programme development
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
10. Designing Failure-Tolerant Products
Reliability-Based Design Optimisation (RBDO)
10
The deviation from the ideal function indicates how close the
system is to the failure mode.
Robustness failures occur when the demand placed on the design
exceeds the capacity.
Robustness Sensitivity Noises:
• Production variations
• Wear out and drift over time
• Customer duty cycles
• Environment
• Component interactions
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
13. Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) Quality Management
13
Why FMEA?
A methodology for discovering potential malfunction and reliability
problems that may exist within the design of a product or process
early in the development cycle to ensure meet or exceed customer
expectations, standards and regulatory requirements.
Extensively used in system development for anticipating failure
during design stage by identifying, analysing, evaluating and
prioritising actions to mitigate potential/known failure modes,
thereby enhancing reliability through design.
FMEA is not a substitute for good engineering. Rather, it enhances
good engineering by applying the knowledge and experience of a
Cross Functional Team (CFT) to review the design progress by
assessing its risk of failure. FMEA promotes corrective action to
prevent or decrease the possibility of defects being delivered to the
customer
While practical anticipation of every failure modes in a product
during design has its limitations and not possible, FMEA help to
formulate as extensive a list of potential failure modes as possible.
The early and consistent use of FMEAs in the design process allows
companies to design out failures and produce reliable, safe, and
customer pleasing products. FMEAs also capture historical
information for use in future product improvement.
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
14. 14
Discovering failure modes early in
Product Development (PD) phase
using FMEA provides the several
benefits include:
Documented method for selecting a design with a high
probability of successful quality operation and safety to
increase customer satisfaction.
A uniform methodology of assessing potential failure
mechanisms, modes and impact on system operation to
improve product/process reliability and quality.
Multiple choices early identification, verification and
elimination of failure points and system interface problems.
An effective method for evaluating the effect of proposed
changes to the design and/or operational procedures.
A basis for in-flight troubleshooting procedures and for
locating performance monitoring and fault-detection devices.
Criteria for improved early planning of validation tests and
development, capture risks and engineering actions taken
Prioritised product/process deficiencies management.
Catalyst for teamwork and quality improvement knowledge
exchange between functions.
Improved Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFM/A)
Lower cost solutions and Cost of Poor Quality (CPQ) in
production and aftermarket operation.
FMEA Provides Many Benefits
One of many tools used to
discover failure at its earliest
possible point in product or
process design.
https://www.locusresearch.com/avoiding-failure/
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
15. 15
FMEAs should always be done whenever
failures would mean potential harm or injury
to the user of the end item being designed
System - CFMEA Design - DFMEA Process - PFMEA Machinery - MFEMA Service - SFMEA
• Software SFMEA
• Foundation FFMEA
• Concept CFMEA
There are Many Types of FMEA’s
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
16. Effective FMEA Deployment and Principles
16
The automotive industry has long used FMEA as means to improve
customer satisfaction and reduce non-conformance.
FMEA, is a tool for the identification and prioritisation of possible
ways a product or process can fail. The intent is to use that
information to make improvements to the product or process.
FMEA is primarily deployed to:
Develop product or process requirements that minimise the
likelihood of failures.
Evaluate customer requirements and functionality in the design
process to ensure that the requirements do not introduce
potential failures.
Identify design characteristics that contribute to system failures
to minimise the resulting effects.
Support the development of product/process test methods and
procedures to ensure that the failures have been successfully
verified and controlled.
Track and manage potential risks in the design and development
process.
Ensure that any product potential failures poses low safety risks
and impact to customers.
When designing a new product, process or service, transforming
an existing process, quality improvement activities and need to
understand and improve the failures of a process
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
Common FMEA Deployment Guiding
Principles
Right Objectivity and Focus:
Problem Prevention
Design and Process Improvements
Leverage FMEAs to Improve Test Plans and Process Controls
Select FMEA Projects Based on Preliminary Risk Assessment
Lean and simplicity
Right Resource Allocation:
Team-Based Activity
Skills and Experience
Lessons Learned
Robust Management
Effective Process
Quality Knowledge
Procedures:
Well defined and clear
Requirements Driven and Data Driven
Root Cause and Failure Definition Mechanisms
Focus on Areas of High Concern and Risk
Right Time Frame
Fully Execution to Ensure Risk Reduction to an Acceptable Level
17. 17
Input Process Output
FMEA
FMA Process Flow
Inputs & Outputs - Outcome Based Deliverables
Customer Requirements
System Design Specifications (SDS)
Quality Function Deployment (QFD)
Benchmarking
Design and / or Process Assumptions
Preliminary Bill of Material / Components
Known causes from surrogate products
Boundary diagram and interface matrix
Parameter Diagrams (P-Diagrams)
Potential causes from design choices
Potential causes from noises and
environments
Baseline FMEA (Historical FMEA)
Past Test and Control Methods used on
similar products
Past Failure or error states
Process Flow Diagram
Characteristics Matrix
Design Verification Plan (DVP)
Quality Risk Management (QRM) Plan
Test Cases
Design Rules
Standards
Special Characteristics:
Critical/Significant
Deviation Plans
Safety Sign-off
Robustness Checklist
Avoiding Failure in Design
https://www.locusresearch.com/avoiding-failure/
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
18. 18
Function Potential Design Controls Actions Verification
Failure Mode Effects Causes Prevention Detection
FMA Model and Rational Approach
A Structured Approach to Define Important Quality Focal Points
Potential Causes Analysis
Cause and effect (Ishikawa Diagram) and 5 whys
Typical Failure Effects
Noise
Inoperative
Unpleasant Odour
Leaks
Operation Impaired
Poor appearance
Unstable
Regulatory non-compliance
Rough-rattle/vibration
Preventions
Score
effectiveness of
countermeasures
Detections
Design Reviews
Assess Stds
Test cases
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
Review
process
Define
potential
failure
modes
List failure
mode
potential
effects
Assign
severity
rating
Assign
occurrence
rating
Assign
detection
rating
Calculate
effect risk
priority
number
Prioritise the
failure
modes
Eliminateor
de-risk high-
risk failure
modes
Recalculate
RPN as risks
are reduced
or
eliminated
19. 19
Quality Risk Management (QRM) is Getting More Important
The rise in focus on risk management and mitigation through FMEA
is so integral in the development process that Six Sigma, Production
Part Approval Process (PPAP), Tooling and Equipment (TE 9000), ISO
9000, QS-9000, and ISO/TS16949 have all required FMEA as one of
the suggested ways a company can improve.
An effective quality risk management approach can further ensure
the high quality vehicles and products to the customers by
providing a proactive means to identify and control potential quality
issues during development and manufacturing.
Risk identification and analysis, should effectively capture
knowledge, map processes, and allow the definition of an ontology
of objects (unit operations) with specific attributes (inputs and
outputs).
Risk Lifecycle Management Plan (RLMP) should be put in place to
manage unacceptable risks, evaluating the control strategy
performance, detecting improvement opportunities and managing
additional risks originated from new events.
Team alignment, empathy across multiple functions and an
effective knowledge-sharing and harvest right from the beginning,
all needed for a successful QRM.
The target of completing of an FMEA is in practice very limited and
extremely time-consuming to achieve if the initial 'knowledge-
based' steps are weak.
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
20. 20
Risk identification
Use of multiple techniques and tools
Must be based on reason and factual data
Should be what could, might or possibly happen
Categorised as either threat (-ve) or opportunity (+ve)
Written in the context
Consequence of occurring or impact described
Ownership assigned
Proximity determined and assigned
Exposure Analysis
Industry-specific quality management requirements
Complex analytical or technical sampling and testing
Complete finished product for cycle testing and analysis
Highly technical quality controls or skills for process control
Diversity of new products introduced in a short period
Controls
Comprehensive quality planning, control and Standard Operating
Procedures (SOPs) for all significant processes
Effective training programmes and suitably skilled employees
Full familiarity of employees with quality management procedures
Audit programmes and follow-up of findings
Regular review and updating of procedures and processes
State of the art systems, personnel, methods, processes and
documentation of results for quality control.
Risk Analysis is not Easily and Commonly Incorporated
What to look for: Identification, Exposure Analysis & Controls
Prof. Dr. José C. Menezes. CEO 4Tune Engineering and
Associate Professor, University of Lisbon for Bioengineering
The purpose of this Risk Factor is to
assess the quality management
system in place, and the quality
controls / quality assurance applied
to the product(s) under review.
Quality Controls are related to the
output (product / service) quality
and cover the whole product testing
in manufacturing cycle from
component to final product.
Failure Mode Criticality Matrix
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
21. Common Delivery Pitfalls
Challenges with Applying FMEA to the VDP
21
For all its benefits, the FMEA does have a few limitations. There are
many challenges associated with performing FMEAs efficiently and
Effectively:
• Integration with other tools when used in isolation - FMEA and
other risk assessment methods, including SWIFT (Structured
What If Technique) and retrospective approaches, have been
found to have limited validity when used in isolation. Challenges
around scoping and organisational boundaries appear to be a
major factor in this lack of validity
• Function of the FMEA’s basis for prioritising failure modes
according to risk - Incorrect definition of rating scales for
criticality, and rating the criticality of the failure modes might
result in incorrect assessment and priorities. If used as a top-
down tool, FMEA may only identify major failure modes in a
system.
• A mistake is not adopting a known countermeasure for a known
failure mode - The countermeasure for mistakes is primarily a
matter of ensuring the correct use of design guidelines and
standards, and to avoid repeat past mistakes
• Unclear procedures links to details FMEA – Deployment of
standardised and clear FMEA document is critical as many
differing versions of FMEAs, deliverables and controls create
confusions and focus.
• Effective FMEA scoping - The FMEA is a time consuming, and the
team walks a fine-line between taking on too large of a scope and
taking on one that’s too small. Limited focus on the details may
results in many failure modes being missed. On the other hand,
too many details may make the analysis seem a daunting task.
The solution is to break the process down into manageable
segments.
• Failing to recognise that the FMEA is not a static model - For
successful risk management, the FMEA should be regularly
updated as new potential failure modes are identified and
corresponding control plans are developed.
• The desire to produce a refined FMEA require assembling an
effective team - Issues beyond team members’ knowledge aren’t
likely to be detected or resolved. if the team forgets to list failure
modes, they’ll be ignored.
• Knowledge and understanding of new innovations - Defining the
failure modes for new technologies.
• FMEA governance – Lack of strong leadership, emphasis on the
importance, controls and reviews for robustness can results in
poor quality and completion.
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
22. 22
There is an increasing need for automotive companies to continually
refine their execution methods of FMEA, taking into account the
amount of time and cost on recalls and warranty repairs.
Implementation of quality assurance (QA) oversight processes
that ensures compliance with requirements, pursues achievement of
quality objectives and excellence through continuous improvement,
provides for timely identification and correction of deficient
conditions, and verifies the effectiveness of completed actions:
• Setting clear quality objectives, targets and goals
• Leadership and management consistency
• Robust quality policies, standards, processes and systems
• Proactive focus on identifying and addressing quality failure mode
in the early phase of VDP
• Standardised best practices and approach
• Evidenced based management reviews and approvals of FMEAs
• Cross Functional Team (CFT) involvement
• Effective translation of customer requirements into lower level
functional actions
• Taking the right quality focused actions and choices
• Avoiding deviations and late changes in the VDP
• Use of IDOV (Identify, Design, Optimize, Verify) process
• Reliability-Based Design Optimisation (RBDO) model
Oversight and Quality Assurance
Get the Most out of your FMEA Efforts
Steps for Risk Improvement
Regular review of compliance with legal provisions
Quality control strategy, plan and effectiveness
Enable and Review Customer Feedback
Transfer Risk through Management of Suppliers
Plan quality into Design
Review and audit activities and corrective actions for on-going
monitoring of quality
Implementation of a system for continuous improvement
Strengthening Quality Management
Capabilities, Improving Efficiency and
Effectiveness
Design FMEA must not rely on process controls to overcome
potential design weaknesses, but it should take the technical and
physical limits of a manufacturing/assembly process into
consideration. If design deficiencies are identified that may cause
unacceptable variation, they should be highlighted and remedial
design actions taken in early stages of development phase.
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
23. Example – Toyota Proactive Preventive Technique
Design Review Based on Failure Mode (DRBFM)
23
The development stage of a new product or component is a crucial time for identifying and addressing any problems. Taking action at an
early stage can prevent more serious and harder-to-fix issues occurring closer to production.
Toyota use Design Review Based on Failure Mode as a PROACTIVE preventive technique, in which designers focus on areas of change,
pinpoint any potential problem areas and apply knowledge they have gained from previous projects.
Fundamentals of proactive prevention cycle to identify and address
issues.
https://www.toyota-europe.com/world-of-toyota/feel/quality/designing-quality
Proactive Prevention cycle to prevent reliability problems from the
design stage.
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
24. Example
How Porsche Ensures the Quality of its Products
24
Mission: to analyse the causes of failures and to qualify parts
from pilot production to end-of-product. Preventive analyses for
early quality optimisation.
Four pillars of Porsche quality:
Emotional quality
Functional quality
Image quality
Service quality
Top level quality is part of the Porsche brand identity -
There are various key indicators for measuring quality and
thus making it transparent, such as by generating precise
statistics on claims and warranty costs.
Central control, decentralised implementation - Quality
competence is thereby embodied throughout the entire
corporation, and each unit has a high level of self-motivation
to achieve the best possible quality
https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/company/porsche-quality-production-workshop-12502.html
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
25. Summary
25
An FMEA:
Identifies may ways which a product can fail to meet
requirements
Estimate failure modes associated risks
Prioritise validation and mitigation actions to reduce risks
FMA is an integral part of the engineering process, not additional
to it.
A Cross Functional Team (CFT) tool
Many types of FMEA: Concept, Foundation, Design, Services,
System, Software, Process, Machine
FMEA inputs include several other process tools
Early discovery of failure modes in the VDP provides many
competitive benefits.
A large safety factor does not necessarily translate into a reliable
product. Instead, it often leads to an overdesigned product with
reliability problems.
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
A failure mode only has to be found and fixed once. Always
assume the potential Failure Mode will be present rather than
hope that it won’t.
Counter-measures must be applied in the phase that the failure
mode was created; otherwise the failure mode will escape.
You have to be able to excite a failure mode to know that you
can, through a counter-measure, prevent it.
Control of product liability may vary depending on the stage in
product’s life cycle. During development and production, you
have significant opportunity to build in safeguards against
potential liability claims.
If a change is not necessary, re-use of proven designs in
comparable environments must be maximised.
26. About SSCG's Global Automotive Practice
26
SSCG provides a wide range of quality management consulting and
advisory services globally, to the automotive, manufacturing,
business services property and engineering sector.
Consulting involves understanding your overall product and process
development needs and developing a time and cost effective
process. There are two aspects of APQP that can be developed
through consulting: The prevention of failure on new product /
services within the organization and APQP deployment for the
supply chain.
Our quality consulting services help clients:
Redefine business positioning in competitive markets and
unprecedented time of change
Define strategies for competitive growth and profitability
Define Voice of Customers (VoC) to put their expectations at the
centre of the business
Define quality vision, objectives, standards and goals
Establish Quality Management System(QMS)
Develop and deploy quality process, procedures and tools: FMEA,
Kano Model, APQP, PPAP, TQM, Six Sigma
IATF 16949/ISO9001 compliance and audit
Quality project management assistance
Product/service quality management: Planning, prevention,
detection and risk oversight
Cost of poor quality reduction and return on investment
How we can help?
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation
27. Contact Us
27
Eugene Nizeyimana
Principal Consultant, Automotive Products, Process and
Programmes Quality, SSCG Consulting
Phone: +44 7879150562/+44 1902 752758
Email: Eugene.Nizeyimana@sscg-group.com
AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT | Automotive Product Quality Optimisation