APQP and PPAP for Beginners - Where do I start?

Hello everyone,

My name is Manuel. And as many of you I'm having new responsabilities into my job rol, so, one of those is APQP and I must schedule weekly meetings just for this methodology. Some one has an idea of how to arrange this APQP meetings?

I know the AIAG manual and I do understand how APQP works but... I never have performed a meeting.

Hope you can share with me your experience and knowledge.

M Meraz said:

Hello everyone,

My name is Manuel. And as many of you I'm having new responsabilities into my job rol, so, one of those is APQP and I must schedule weekly meetings just for this methodology. Some one has an idea of how to arrange this APQP meetings?

I know the AIAG manual and I do understand how APQP works but... I never have performed a meeting.

Hope you can share with me your experience and knowledge.

Click to expand...

Are you a member of the Supply Planning team in your organization?

I am also unclear. Do you want to know what should be in an APQP meeting? Or do you want to know an overview of how to have an effective meeting?

Also, some context would help. Are you a supplier who is performing an APQP cycle to show your customer? Or are you a customer who has to evaluate the APQP cycles of your suppliers?

NCWALKER

I am also unclear. Do you want to know what should be in an APQP meeting? Or do you want to know an overview of how to have an effective meeting?

Also, some context would help. Are you a supplier who is performing an APQP cycle to show your customer? Or are you a customer who has to evaluate the APQP cycles of your suppliers?

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I want to know an overview to have an effective meeting. Roles, and some other information to make my weekly meetings successful.

Also, I'm a supplier and I want to perform the APQP cycle.

Thank you all.

OK. To have an effective meeting:

1) An agenda. This is needed so people come prepared. If it is a regularly recurring meeting, people eventually learn the agenda. But if it is a one time meeting, you need to send one out. It's best if you assign TIME to it. Like for an hour long meeting 15 minutes on review of last actions, 15 minutes on presentation of new actions, 30 minutes of discussion. See "timekeeper" below. Also - do not be afraid to call someone out if they come to a meeting ill prepared. If you do not to this, many people get into the habit of showing up to a meeting with zero preparation figuring they will work on the subject DURING the meeting. This wastes everyones time.

2) A Leader. The leader steers the meeting. It doesn't have to be the highest ranking person in the room. This guys job is to keep the meeting on the subject so it doesn't get side tracked. This is a must have. This guy should be saying things like:
"OK - we are getting off topic, let's table this important issue for a later discussion."
"We are eating up time, and we have lots to cover, let's stay on topic."
"Please let person X finish there question before we jump in."
"Hey, person Y, you seem a little unprepared. We are going to skip your topic for today, please be more prepared next time."

3) A note taker. Too many times the leader (usually the person setting up the meeting) does this too. The result is the notes always suck. The leader is too busy steering to take the notes.

That's the minimum stuff. A designated leader. A designated note taker. AND an agenda. The most important thing a leader of a meeting also needs to do is evaluate how the meeting WENT so it can be improved next time. In general, this kind of stuff isn't done and consequently we get tied up into useless meetings that drone on and accomplish little.

A good TONE is also important. As much as we like each other, burning the first ten minutes of the meeting talking about last nights soccer match may SEEM to set a friendly tone. And in a small organization, that doesn't have many meetings this can be OK. But those 10 minute diversions add up to a lot of time lost in a larger organization. Don't waste peoples time. As much as it may seem like you need to set a friendly environment, MOST people will actually appreciate if you get in, then bam, bam, bam, cover each topic efficiently, and go on your way. The fluff and fun is good for sales meetings and the like. Keep it out of the stuff you run your business with. One thing I also see at maybe 10% of the places I visit, the production type meetings are done in rooms with standing tables. And there are no chairs in there at all. This keeps people from "getting comfortable" and using it as a break. Which leads to gossip and prattle and time wasting. Now, you don't want a 3 hour meeting at a standing table. But a production type/status update meeting should be brief. No more than an hour.

Some other things to consider....

1) You may want a designated timer. Who watches the clock and helps the leader keep the schedule.

2) You may want a "parking lot attendant." This person is like a note taker. But the difference is this ... the note taker is taking notes about the meeting that is going on. Sometimes this is pretty taxing. When someone brings up a valid point that doesn't serve THIS meeting, you typically table it for further discussion. Sometimes you say it goes in the "parking lot." The parking lot guy records THAT stuff. Different than the note taker. It's not a requirement, but it can help if a lot is going on.

3) Do you need "experts?" Sometimes something comes up and the decision makers/people in the meetings are not the experts. Packaging is a good example. Everyone has the "packaging guy" or the "shipping guy." Usually that guys in his own office off by the shipping/receiving area. Does a good job, and is generally left alone BECAUSE he does a good job. Not usually involved in a production meeting. But ... if an issue may need his expertise (like you have to ship to a different country suddenly) it may be a good idea to invite that guy rather than have the meeting regulars scratching their heads, or even worse, mouthing off with that they *think* that may be WRONG and suddenly it's policy. But that's a decision you make in planning.

4) Do not fall into the trap of talking about everything EVERY time. Some meetings are scheduled because you are doing a big project that spans months or years. And when things get critical, bosses want daily meetings. The trap here is ... between today and tomorrows meeting, you can only get so much work done. Don't waste time talking about things that are 3 months away EVERY time. You will suddenly be in a 3 hour meeting every day where you say the same thing every day. And wonder why you aren't getting any work done.

If you have a problem and someone says "We need to have a meeting," you are already wrong. The statement should be at a minimum "We need to have a meeting to discuss X with a goal of Y." You have to start getting into a culture of having an OBJECTIVE in the meeting.

Here are some of my personal gripes that may or may not help.

1) It's real easy to just click names in the meeting request on your computer. That sucks. Because lots of people get invited who don't have a dog in the fight. This will result in people not taking meeting requests seriously AND there are lots of people who like to hear themselves talk. If that person has no dog in the fight, you better believe they will still talk. And waste your time. So take the time and THINK about who needs to be in your meeting. This gets worse the larger the facility gets.

2) The meeting request itself needs to have enough purpose that people can be prepared. If I get a meeting request that says "Quality Team Meeting" or "Issue with Supplier X" or "PPAP Meeting" I honestly don't accept it. I just reject the thing. That invariably means the requestor of the meeting doesn't really know what they want. Maybe they just want a feel good session. I don't have time for that. At a minimum it should say:
a) what the situation is
b) what the urgency is
c) what the objective is

3) Use some statistics on your tasks. Everyone comes up with a task list and invariably at some point someone will put in a column designating criticality of the task. High, Medium, Low. Hot or Cold. Whatever. Shortly after this designation is chose, EVERYTHING becomes "Hot." Guess what? Everything can't be Hot. If it is, delete the damn column in the meeting tracker, because it's not doing you any good other than giving everyone anxiety of all these Hot tasks. I actually count them. And the rule in the meeting is - of the total tasks, no more than 10% can be High priority. No more than 20% can be Normal. EVERYTHING ELSE is low priority. Over time, everything gets marked "Hot." Then we have a reality check and reassign priorities until it goes back to 10%, 20%, 70%.

So ... there you go. Effective meetings.

Now on to the APQP Process.

I have no idea what you do, so I really can't lay out a structure of this for you.

It's basically.....

1) You are awarded a job, so you start the APQP process.
2) You build your tools and install your equipment.
3) You run off your new process and make a PPAP package.
4) You submit your PPAP package.
5) You cry in bewilderment and pain when you realize your customer has changed a bunch of requirements and not told you.

Hee hee. I'm kidding. Maybe. But as a supplier, here are some key, key things where you will get hurt. Do NOT miss these in your APQP process.

1) The Feasibility Commitment. There is going to be some document where your customer wants a bunch of your people to sign that is basically you agreeing that you can do this thing they want. Typically, suppliers pencil whip this thing. Do NOT do this. Take it seriously and really look. If it is totally feasible and you CAN do it, sign it and send it. But look at a typical commitment. You will see spaces where your customer has to sign it too. Customer's are lazy. If it is feasible, sign it. But if it is feasible AND YOU HAVE EXCEPTIONS, make your customer sign it. I am totally serious about this. You tell them "we aren't working until you sign this too, because there are exceptions." If you are in a hurry to get started and do not do this, come PPAP time your customer won't care that you can't quite do it. You will have no defense. It will be a game of school yard bullying and you will lose it. UNLESS you pull out a Feasibility Commitment signed by them.

2) They will/may want timing updates as your APQP progresses. If this timing slips and you have to tell them, of course email them. But CALL them. Call a meeting if you have to. They are getting more emails than you want to think about, and this important email is a drop in the bucket to them. If they realize that something has been delayed and call you and you answer with "well, I SENT you an email ...." You better brace yourself. They won't be happy. That's a ridiculous excuse for something that important. And trust me, if you do this to them, they have PLENTY of opportunity to make your life miserable.

3) You want ONE person in your organization who has good people skills to be contacting a key individual at your customer. Figure out who that is. Keep the communication tight and between a small group. Be very careful with a "Reply All" on an email from your customer. If you don't know who is on the email with them, do NOT reply all. Unless they ask you to do so specifically. That's just going to bring you pain. 90% of the people at your customer location think you're an idiot and can't make a good part to save your life. Why? Because they only hear about you when you are making mistakes. They do not hear about you when you are doing well. Don't give them fuel for THAT fire.

4) Never, ever call them and say "there's a problem" WITHOUT at least one proposed solution.

5) Take time to make what you send them professional and presentable. For example: Dimensional reports. Don't just send them 6 CMM printouts and say "Here's my dimensionals." Take the time to do some formatting of the things - whatever you send. So it is simple and clear. If you send them something complex, they will dig into it and find mistakes. Then suddenly they will ask for more and MORE AND MORE. I don't mean HIDE things from them, like mistakes. The stuff you send should be right. But here's the thing - the "rules" as to what actually is right and wrong are way too subject to interpretation. (Thanks, AIAG, big help...) So you could put something up on this forum and say "Is this right?" and get 10 folks on here, who know quality, to say "Yes it is." Give it to me and if I want to, I WILL find something wrong with it. If you send me something clear and organized, my impression will be you know what you are doing and I won't go on a witch hunt.

6) If you are unclear about what you have to submit, ASK them. When you finally DO submit your PPAP, it needs to be complete and correct the first time. If you are unclear and submit one that is missing things they want and they have to come back and ask for it, you have just signed them up to reviewing your submission twice. At best, that's going to delay your approval and most likely a payment milestone.

7) And the biggest mistake for last ... If you have to purchase a measuring device from an outside company, you make sure that you do a proper Gage R&R on your floor before you make a final payment. And it needs to be done on PARTS, not some master sample they give you. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen a supplier burned by this. It is an extremely expensive mistake. Same goes for production equipment. If a guy says his parts washer can process 100 an hour, you tie a payment milestone to him demonstrating it can on your floor with your parts.

That's not really what you asked ... you asked about the APQP process. For that - go read the Blue Books. It isn't hard. But the above - that's where I see suppliers in general making big mistakes that cost them money that could easily be avoided. We aren't your friends. We're your customer. And frankly, at your customer, 90% of us think you're nothing special and could be replaced pretty easily. I don't mean the people you will be interfacing with, I mean the rest of the organization that has to deal with what you send them. So the people you interface with - your buyer and your supplier quality engineer. And your engineering contact there. Don't make their lives miserable with half ass work. They are the only thing standing in the way of the machine grinding you into paste.

Hey NcWalker,

Great tips.. really I'll put them into practice!! This next friday 7/22th will be my first APQP meeting, if you want, I can let you know how it works and share my experience of it.

thank you.

NcWalker,

Again, all that you have commented here has been really revealing. I did read the blue book of the APQP and PPAP and is pretty good information, but also the expertice of the day by day helps to show the proper path to follow.

Thank you.

Of course we want to know. Also, the meeting tips aren't "mine. " Just things this old guy picked up over the years.