Automotive product development process (APDP) using knowledge management for lower the “Quality cost”

The recent Recalls made by Toyota, Ford and even Maruthi-Suzuki have left many pioneers of Automotive industry wondering for reasons. Think – tanks in the automobile sector have already perceived it as a monumental disaster with regard of profitability as well as consumer loyalty. With engineering faults being found out which can jeopardize safety the dreaded verb RECALL was not oblivious to declaration.

The cost of quality is not the price of creating a quality product or service. It is however the cost of NOT creating a quality product or service. There are three groups of quality costs: External failure costs: warranty claims & service costs, Internal failure costs: the cost of labour, material associated with scrapped parts, and rework., Cost of appraisal & inspection: these are materials for samples, test equipment, inspection labour cost, quality audits, etc. When associated with Automobile Industry it can be safely stated that it is the cost of having an Automobile recall. The risk of losing the industry Trustmark comes as an unwanted bonus with it. There are many ways to lower this Cost of Quality for which Knowledge Management, SIX SIGMA, Lean Manufacturing, Lean-SIXSIGMA, Knowledge Based Engineering.

This paper highlights Automotive product development process is the leveraging of collective wisdom to increase responsiveness and innovation. It is set of processes that seeks to change the organization's present pattern of knowledge processing & executive product development programs to reduce the cost of quality & enhance the performance of the organizations.