ABSTRACT
Project and programme management in the automotive industry is characterized by the following key challenges when developing and launching new products: mass production with high quality and safety standards; very high variation between delivered products; and so on. Programme management is applied in the automotive industry to a variety of different product developments and programmes. To achieve world-class quality, standardization organizations, automotive industry associations and individual automotive companies have developed quality management standards and tools. Many automotive companies have adjusted Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) to their specific quality planning needs. As with many other product development process (PDP), an APQP-based PDP incorporates phases, gates, sub-phases and subgates. It describes which deliverables have to be generated by which department. In addition, it highlights how these deliverables need to be synchronized with the contributions made by other departments, and at which point within the overall product development logic.
