The abbreviation APQP stands for Advanced Product Quality Planning, which is a widely used systematic method to plan quality up front, in order to fulfil customer requirements, and to reach customer satisfaction. APQP is not only a method, but also a structured framework, which defines exact steps to reach the serial production of a product in time, without risks, quality failures, delayed changes and unexpected costs.

The APQP manual was being developed by the big three US carmakers (Chrysler, Ford, General Motors) for years before its first release in 1994, published by AIAG, to provide guidelines to suppliers and sub-contractors in the automotive business. It is in close relation to various procedures, practices, quality tools, and analytical techniques, such as FMEA, SPC, PPAP, MSA, and follows the PDCA methodology.

As APQP was developed by automakers, it is mostly widespread in the automotive industry, however the framework itself was usable by many other industry sectors, and had been adapted by companies in sectors such as information technology, consumer goods, aerospace, etc.

In order to realize products with flawless quality, not only the process, but the product design must be robust as well by all means. Keeping this in mind, the APQP process contains five major sections (also called phases):

Going from concept to product launch, each section of APQP is ending with an evaluation meeting (also called quality gates), when the team and the steering committee evaluates the actual condition of the relevant activities in the given phase. These activities are:

To avoid misunderstandings, the sections and activities of APQP are two different terms. Section (or phase) means a given frame, divided by quality gates, while activities can be concurrent, overlapping sections (e.g. there is a time-frame, when both product and process development are running, while feedback and assessment are covering the whole APQP process). This also means collaboration between design, manufacturing and quality engineers (in other words: Simultaneous Engineering).

The following table represents the APQP phases and outputs:

Although the AIAG APQP manual defines APQP elements and project milestones in a logical and systematic way, many companies defined a very similar, but slightly different structure of the Product Engineering / Development Process (PEP / PDP). The whole process is divided into sections, but it contains many overlapping and iterations from development and realization point of view, based on PDCA and DMAIC principles:

The benefits of APQP are comprehensive, providing quality, prestige and last but not least financial advantages:

APQP is a key sub-frame of the Project Management process. While PM covers the whole project with all its elements, APQP does the same with all the quality related points. In order to reach the risk, and failure free manufacturing condition, the APQP team must work in structure.

Focus on finding the risks and potential failures up front. The earlier the team finds them, the less resource you have to spend on them.

Design freeze (the time after no design change is allowed) is a very crucial milestone. Defining its date is essential, and the needed amount of time must be spent on effective testing. Design verification can save you from plenty of headaches, money, and you won’t lose face.

Use lessons learned (LL) databases even if the subject of a new project is not very similar to a previous product. The experience of the past can help a lot!