Improving New Product Development Through Effective Critical to Quality Process and Supplier Quality Activity

Abstract

The objective of this study was to improve new product quality by defining changes to the supplier quality activity in the new product implementation process of the case company. A project plan was created to provide a structured approach to conduct the study.

The research approach of this study was design research with four distinctly different stages. The first stage discusses the analysis of the current supplier quality related activities in the NPI process in a multipronged data collection of workshops, interviews and documents. The second stage discusses the exploration of relevant literature to tackle the weaknesses identified in the first stage culminating in the conceptual framework.

The third stage discusses the co-creation of the initial recommendations for the critical to quality process topics and the supplier quality representation in the NPI process with key stakeholders and the data acquired from the first two stages. The fourth and final stage discusses the refining of the initial recommendations with the help of decisionmakers, key stakeholders and resource owners.

This study started from a wider perspective of the case company’s new product implementation process from the supplier quality point of view. The recommendation building and selection of weaknesses narrowed down to the critical to quality process and its ownership, and the supplier quality representation in the NPI process due to their impact for the case company.

The outcome of this study provides a set of recommendations to improve supplier quality in the NPI process. The recommendations provide a way to manage critical to quality process by defining responsibilities for the process owner, an ability to gather and evaluate critical to quality parameters from the customer requirements, and provide further discussion how to plan IT for critical to quality parameters. Furthermore, the recommendations provide a set of value adding activities and schedule for the supplier quality team in the NPI process.