Complaint Management

Planning, conducting and control of actions to deal with customer complaints in order to conserve customer satisfaction.

Conformity

Compliance with a specified quality standard.

Control plan

A document in which the system for quality control of products or fabrication processes is described.

Flowchart

Schematic representation of a process, which shows inputs, outputs, and unity of activity.

Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA)

Discipline approach used to identify possible failure mode of a process or product.

Production Part Approval Process (PPAP)

Process for part approval by the customer according to the AIAG PPAP Manual. A PPAP documentation normally includes evidence that the production is qualified, documented and run consistently.

Process Audit

An audit to assess effectiveness of a process and to define improvement actions for development and stabilisation.

Product Audit

An audit to assess product quality and to define improvement actions for development and stabilisation.

Product Change Notification (PCN)

Document to officially inform the customer about major changes of a product or a process. The supplier needs the approval from the customer for the PCN in order to be allowed to implement the change.

Quality Assurance Agreement

A contract between customer and selected suppliers to assure the quality level agreed upon for future deliveries. This includes the supply of statistical key figures stating the quality level. Usually incoming inspections are minimised having a QAA.

Quality Function Deployment

A planning tool to implement customer quality requirements into products. The "House of Quality" is the basic systematic scheme for this tool. The following twelve steps are addressed:

• Determination and evaluation of customer requirements
• Assessment of competing products from customer's point of view
• Comment on evaluation results
• Definition of design requirements
• Definition of targets for design requirements
• Evaluation of co relation between design and customer requirements
• Assessment of the relevance of design requirements
• Definition of optimised design requirements
• Determination of interdependence between design attributes
• Assessment of competing products from technical point of view
• Establish degree of severity for proposed realisation
• Additional comments

Statistical Process Control (SPC)

Discipline involving statistical techniques to identify and control causes of variation in a process.

System Audit

An audit to assess the quality management system in terms of compliance with quality system requirements and effectiveness of business processes

Third Party Audit

An audit carried out by an independent certifier in order to get certification according to a quality standard.