Björn Falk

Product Quality from the Customers’ Perspective – Systematic Elicitation and Deployment of Perceived Quality Information

Product quality lies in the eye of the beholder. It is an individual and subjective interpretation of realized product criteria and hence more than the compliance with the customer’s expressed performance requirements. But the elicitation of delighting quality attributes is both time- and cost-intensive and often still open to interpretation. To successfully differentiate themselves from their competitors, companies have to systematically objectify their customers’ quality judgments. The paper presents an integrated approach to structure quality perception from the customer’s perspective and to channel the relevant information into the product development process. Key elements are the coordinated survey and specification of perception-relevant product attributes to minimize losses and misinterpretations. This supports the change from an intuitive to a fact-based product development as well as the notion of a resource-conserving value chain.

Introduction of a Quality Oriented Production Theory for Product Realization Processes

The paper reviews the development of quality management and production theory in the industrial revolution. It is shown that existing production theories focus and explain the logistical transformation processes while leaving the notion of customer satisfaction and requirements transformation open. In the following chapters a concept for a new quality oriented production theory is presented which explains structure and behaviour of product realization processes. It is shown that the time weighted requirements/ specification and their completion level can serve as the central parameter in order to model product realization processes and to provide suggestions for the realization process management.

Tolerancing subjective and uncertain customer requirements regarding perceived product quality

Defining “quality” from customers’ perspective and controlling it throughout the product development process is a fuzzy and enduring task, especially for companies that are, simultaneously, fighting cost pressure and shortening product and technology life cycles. The poor predictability of customer demands complicates the definition of established requirements. During the product development process, product experts interpret the customer requirements and transfer them into product specifications. Due to the subjective nature of customer demands and the vast field of human perception, a huge number of product parameters have to be analyzed and specified to assure a comprehensive and successful approach. In order to keep an adequate cost–value ratio in production, it is not possible to pinpoint “hard” tolerances for each parameter. This article depicts the structured approach to choose the parameters, which are relevant for the customers’ quality judgment, and to tolerance “soft” customer perceptions. The emphasis lies on defining and scaling product parameters by combining product tests, interviews and focus groups for evaluation and interpretation by statistical means. Furthermore, the gathered information will be transferred into a “describing” specification, which will be supported by a tolerancing process based on statistical means.

Conceptual modelling of the Failure management process in the manufacturing industry

Companies in the production industry struggle with a fast and sustainable failure elimination. In the past, organisational models for Failure management were in the focus of research. But these approaches often miss a consideration of interdependencies within the production process and the Failure management. Furthermore, they miss a definition of the necessary relations. The purpose of this paper is to understand the challenges of a better integration and design of the Failure management into the production process by developing a concept of a model. This paper describes the elements, connections and targets of Failure management in relation to production systematics in a stock and flow model. Therefore, sub-models for Failure management and the production process are derived from literature and conducted research projects. The model allows detecting critical relations for an effective Failure management. An improvement or establishment of these relations supports companies to develop their Failure management towards a better integration into the production process and leads to a faster, sustainable and more efficient elimination of failures. The provided model allows a deep understanding of the Failure management process. It exceeds the state of the art towards the understanding of intra-system relations. It allows an understanding of the necessary mechanisms of action to enable an organisation to improve its production performance by failure-based learning.

Model-based parameter optimization of a fused deposition modelling process

The aim of this research was to develop mathematical models of a fused deposition modelling process by two different approaches. These models were used to predict the process behavior, to derive optimal process parameters and also to compare these different modelling approaches in terms of model quality. Four subordinate targets were defined. For each, two different modelling approaches were applied. First, black box models were established using design of experiments (DoE). Second, white box models were derived from a theoretical analysis of the process. Afterwards, three different parameter optimizations were applied for the considered fused deposition modelling system to evaluate and compare the prediction accuracy of the models.

Human Factors in Product Development and Design

The design and operation of product development processes are typical problems in engineering domains and quality management. In order to guarantee the efficient and effective realization of products various methods and tools have been developed and established in the past. Nevertheless these methods where usually designed to fit engineer-to-cost strategies for cost efficient products. Recent success stories of companies in different industrial sectors have proven, that engineer-to-value strategies can lead to an even higher profitability of products due to higher margins when combining value and cost orientation (ISO/IEC: 15288:2008; Schuh 2012).

Efficient Commissioning Processes for the Automotive Final Assembly

At the so-called End-of-Line of the automotive final assembly the vehicles are commissioned, i. e. single systems as well as functions are checked and/or adjusted. For example, on the roll brake test stand, the parking brake and the driving brake are checked, whereas at the wheel alignment station the wheels are aligned. The commissioning processes are characterized by a high amount of manual work conducted by highly skilled workers with expensive equipment. Furthermore, many of the functions, which are commissioned at the End-of-Line (e. g. adjustment of the switching operation of the automatic transmission), have a high impact on the customers quality perception. Therefore, the improvement of the commissioning processes is a promising method to decrease costs in the automotive final assembly and increase the quality perceived by the customer. This paper presents an approach and in extracts its application that enables its users to improve commissioning processes at the End-of-Line of an automotive final assembly, regarding costs and quality perceived by the customer. The use-case employed in order to demonstrate the approach is the improvement of the steering wheel alignment.

Produktqualität aus Kundenperspektive

Kurzfassung Produktqualität ist in der Wahrnehmung des Kunden mehr als die Schnittmenge von objektiven Anforderungen und realisierten Produktmerkmalen. Produktqualität liegt im Auge des Betrachters und ist damit eine individuelle und subjektiv geprägte Kenngröße. Zur erfolgreichen Differenzierung im Wettbewerb besteht die Herausforderung für Unternehmen in der systematischen Teilobjektivierung und Antizipation der Qualitätsbewertung aus Sicht aktueller und künftiger Kunden. Der folgende Artikel stellt einen sequentiellen Ansatz vor, um die Qualitätswahrnehmung und -beurteilung aus Kundensicht zu spezifizieren. Dies ermöglicht Forderungen und Erwartungen zu strukturieren, zusammenzuführen und verlustfrei in Produktmerkmale zu überführen. Ziel hierbei ist eine effektive und ressourcenschonende Produktentwicklung.