Implementation Guideline for Combined Requirements- and Quality Management Processes in the R&D Area of Automotive Electronics

Abstract

The automotive sector has to manage the balancing act between high cost pressure, innovation and high quality. These are not only challenges for the OEM but also for the supplier industry. On one hand there are several established quality standards that have to be generally fulfilled in the automotive industry and on the other hand there are OEM specific norms that have to be obtained when facing new orders. At the end of the supply chain the end customer decides whether he is satisfied or dissatisfied with a product and evaluates indirectly with his buying behavior if a product reaches certain quality standards or not. This customer evaluation may be subjective and not based on statistical methods but should kept in mind when designing a product. The definition of quality is in fact widespread and ranges from the design start and production until the delivery of the product to the customer. In the automotive industry there are many approaches to reach quality. There are several guidelines concerning quality in production and how it can be improved. One area which should not be neglected when talking about quality is Research & Development (R&D). The design phase is the point where decisions about certain characteristics about a product are done. The earlier desired and unwanted behaviors of a device are considered the earlier countermeasures can be performed. This leads to the approach that quality is only possible when the behavior of a product is known before it is designed. That is something that sounds quite obvious but in reality, it can be a challenge to exactly reach the customer’s expectations, especially when it comes to complex devices. The focus of the following Master Thesis will be based by reference to R&D in the automotive electronics supplier industry. This is a branch which represents the challenges in the automotive supplier industry in a very good way, as small changes in the product specification may have a big impact on functionality, quality and costs. To exactly know the product specification and customer expectation is crucial to develop into the right direction. There is the area of Requirements Engineering (RE) and Requirements Management (RM) where the desired characteristics of a product are elicited. Standards for Quality Management are mainly focused on quality processes which are often described in a generic way and have to be adapted to company specific processes and usually do not focus on the elicitation of requirements. Both, RM and QM have a common goal, the satisfaction of the customer. Keeping in mind that quality of a product can only be reached when the expectations of a customer are fulfilled leads to the approach that a combination of RM and QM can improve the processes in R&D.