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Tom Miller is a purchasing quality and project management leader with decades of success in the automotive arena. He's also implemented the APQP system currently utilized within the Ford Motor Company and he wrote an article recently for Quality on the subject of APQP.

Michelle: To start off with, could you tell our listeners a little bit about how you first got involved in APQP?

Tom: Well, I'm embarrassed to say, but it’s been almost 20 years now that I was in a position at Ford as the global strategy manager for the supplier quality organization. We had decided that we were not satisfied with the launches that we had had recently. So, we decided we needed to really up our game. And APQP was one of the things we looked at. We took probably over almost two years to get it integrated in with our product development system.

Before we launched it, it was a significant undertaking, for sure. Definitely not an overnight thing.

Michelle: Can you tell us more, once you started using it, what were the benefits or how did it work?

Tom: We were on the precipice of launching a number of global programs. We were going to launch a vehicle in multiple plants in multiple countries. And we just didn't feel like we had a really good handle on the supply base and their integration with our product development system. As we launched this, one of the first factories was getting at issues so much earlier.

It was the suppliers. It took time to train them to report it as it is, not as you want it to be. The status. We found we could really fix problems so much sooner and a lot more cost effectively because if you have the tools, you can solve a lot of problems.

And it saves you not only time but also money when you catch it early. So, it was an eye opener for us. Part of what we built into the process, too, was to have people go, at regular intervals, at certain milestones, to visit the supplier, to verify the information, and certainly can't do that for everybody, but we certainly prioritized and found a lot there.

And people will just, once you get on the floor and you start talking to the team, you learn a lot more about what's going on at the suppliers. It was a lot of great learning.