1. Insight Into Automotive Needs and requirements
Abe Salloum
Office +1-313-737-7507
e-mail: abesalloum@hotmail.com
Abstract – This paper will be centered on the needs of
TIERI automotive suppliers and vehicle manufacturing
requirements of the Integrated Circuit (IC) industry. We
will provide for a concise examination of the Automotive
Product Life Cycle Management (PLM) and then zoom-in
specifically on 5 critical functions: Supplier Quality
Engineering, Advanced Product Quality Planning,
Advanced Manufacturing Engineering, Product
Qualification and Field Performance. In each of these areas
we will discuss today’s needs, pitfalls, and tomorrows’
expectations
I. INTRODUCTION
Most car buyers today expect the car to do far more
then get them from “A to B.” In fact they expect the car to
have wireless communication, instantaneous internet
access, speech dialing, e-mail and voice Short Messaging
Service (SMS), navigation and route guidance, not to
mention state of the art rear-seat-entertainment (RSE) with
high definition graphics displays and unplug-and-play
(UPnP) capabilities – these functionalities are also
expected with Zero defects, compliance to safety standards,
and no warranty returns.
Customers’ appetite for in vehicle connectivity and
infotainment has driven automotive manufacturers into
new and in some cases unchartered territories. Automotive
manufacturers; in a highly territorial and competitive
industry, have been coerced to keep up with rapid
development cycles of that in the mobile and consumer
electronics industry while trying to maintain “traditional”
automotive standards and performance requirements.
In parallel; in the electronics industry, Integrated
Circuit (IC) space in particular; the race is on and is highly
unlikely to slowdown. The focus on device miniaturization,
parallel and efficient computing translating into ever-
smaller packaging and endless software line code is
pushing the technology envelope and conventional
thinking at every substrate layer - literally!
The challenge is then to maintain a balance between
technological advancement and rigorous automotive
requirements.
II. AUTOMOTIVE PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE
MANAGEMENT (PLM)
Not including mass-production and End-of-life
Vehicle (ELV), the PLM process comprise 4 verification
gates all of which are aimed at meeting Start of Production
(SOP) timing. PLM gates are planned deliberately to
translate an idea into a “manufacturable” design under
mass-production conditions. This is not limited to the
environment where the vehicle will be manufactured; but
inclusive of every component involved in the make up of
the vehicle.
Fig. 1. Product Life Cycle Management (PLM) progression and
corresponding product and process readiness.
Each of the PLM gates are highly prescript and
include measured deliverables intended to confirm that the
entire value stream is progressing at the expected pace (Fig.
1).
With rare exceptions, the one rule to remember is that
vehicle manufacturers SOP will not change. Vehicle SOP
is pre-determined by the manufacturer and becomes
contractually binding when the supplier is awarded the
business. As such, any delay during the development and
validation process will have significant impact onto launch
readiness; resulting, in program delays that will have to be
bridged through additional effort by the project team while
still meeting SOP on time.
It is the responsibility of the supplier management to
be engaged from the onset of the program, and be highly
visible in each of the PLM gate reviews ensuring proper
focus and energy e.g. tools, systems, and resources, in
support of program deliverables.
Off - Process
A B C D SOP MP ELV
Home Location
20
40
60
80
100
20
40
60
80
100
DesignReadiness Mass Production
Prototype
Off-tool
End-of Life
Vehicles
Start of
Production
Product Development Gates

2. The program leader must be empowered to hold each
of the program teams and responsible functions
accountable for meeting program deliverables - on Time,
on Cost, and on Quality.
Thorough gate reviews are to be held by the program
team at major milestones, and successful declaration of a
PLM gate; which then allows the program team to move
forward to the next gate, is contingent on the successful
passage of qualification and validation testing defined for
that gates. These tests must be conducted on the targeted
Hardware (HW) and Software (SW) – no workaround
should be allowed unless all risks have been quantified and
impact to product and process is thoroughly understood.
This rule must not be violated – instead; and in the
event of a failed validation results, the failure mode must
be understood, root cause analysis conducted, and
verification of corrective actions implemented. Depending
on the failure mode - the entire validation test or an
abridged sequence thereof must be repeated. Violation of
these guidelines could have an impact onto the overall
performance of the product and may lead to late and costly
design changes with severe field warranty consequences.
III. ROLE OF QUALITY IN THE PLM PROCESS
The harsh environment, in which a vehicle is expected
to survive, ranges between the winters of Siberia −15°C
(5°F) to the heat of Mojave Desert 49 °C (120°F). Most
car buyers tend to keep their vehicles a lot longer that they
do other products. The expectations of car buyer’s and
irrespective of the environment are repeatable and flawless
functionality.
Furthermore, most car manufacturers offer a vehicle
warranty that ranges between 12 and 60 Month in Service
(MIS). And from a financial perspective, car
manufacturers warranty costs account for a hefty portion
of their financial accruals. It is not unusual to observe
significant amount of financial accruals ranging between
1.5% to 3.5% of sales being set aside to pay for car
warranty [1]. For these reasons, and in a highly
competitive environment the automotive industry has
adopted rigorous and in some cases rigid standards in
addition to prolonged qualification and environmental
testing with acceleration factors aimed at identifying and
correcting failures in the product development cycle.
Failures at later stage in the product life cycle tend to be
exuberantly expensive as well as lead to loss of business
and return customers.
Quality is therefore paramount and will not be
achieved by accident – management and the program team
must make a solemn commitment to Quality, carefully
planning Quality deliverables, and most importantly
support execution of resulting corrective actions. Quality
must be built into the product, testing in all of its forms e.g.
run-in, Automated Optical Inspection (AOI), End-of-Line
(EoL) Automated Functional Test (AFT), and visual
inspection, etc…should be used for confirmation and
monitoring of process drifts and not for inspecting quality
into the product.
Fig. 2. APQP progression and corresponding PLM gates.
At each gate of the PLM process specific deliverables
must be carefully identified. These deliverables should be
led, monitored and measured by the Quality team.
Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP), Supplier
Quality Engineering (SQE), and Product Qualification
(PQ) and testing must move in synchrony with the
program team ensuring quality is designed into the product,
is compliant with industry standards and meets highest
customer expectations and field reliability – Zero defects is
the goal (Fig.2).
Conclusions of several case studies using functional
block analysis and field performance data has given us
insight into the main reasons of today’s quality issues and
future challenges [Table 1].
These challenges and lessons learned if not addressed
will cause considerable amount of product performance
Issue Description Current Future
Unauthorized product and process changes
X X
Poor TAT - Dedicated analysis capabilities
not sufficient
X
Trouble Not Found (TNF) analysis bucket not
taken seriously
X X
PPM commitment is higher than any
acceptable target in industry
X X
Safe Launch Process not understood or
adequately implemented
X
Die shrink beyond our ability to accept or
accommodate in the manufacturing process
X
Faster life cycle leading to last time buy
X
No support for older generation products
X X
Lack of automotive specific technology
roadmap
X
No understanding of customer use-case
model
X X
Increasingly complex firmware – Hardware
and software integration
X

3. issues with high cost of poor quality (COPQ). Disciplined
approach by the APQP team during the product
development process of capturing and ensuring lessons
learned corrective actions would pay significant dividends
in the product life cycle performance.
IV. PRODUCTS INDUTRILIZATION
The product industrialization team is responsible for
interfacing with design engineering; customers,
equipments manufacturers and the actual manufacturing
location where the product will be produced.
This responsibility in traditional automotive space
rests on the shoulders of Advanced Manufacturing
Engineers (AME). The AME team has the responsibility to
design, develop, and commission a manufacturing
process capable of producing the designed product under
mass production conditions and at the quoted quantities
and quality meeting customer expectations. AME
involvement begins at business award stage and gathers
significant energy as we approach “C or off-tool/off-
process” gate of the PLM process and continues on into
SOP and mass production.
The AME team must ensure that all manufacturing
and design related issues are resolved before releasing the
process to manufacturing. This involves having a strong
understanding of the individual components as well as the
interactions between HW and SW. Furthermore, the AME
must also have strong commands of available
manufacturing technology such that they are able to select
and introduce suitable equipments.
References:
[1] Warranty Week and based on SEC filling - 2009
data