3 VDA Quality Management in the Automotive Industry Product Development Process / Serial Production Service Development Process / Providing the Service 1st Edition 1998 Process Audit Part 3 6 Process Audit Product Development Process / Serial Production Service Development Process / Providing the Service 1st Edition 1998 Verband der Automobilindustrie e.V. (VDA) 2 ISSN 0943-9412 Copyright 1997 by Verband der Automobilindustrie e.V. (VDA) (Association of the German Automotive Industry) Quality Management Center (QMC) D-60325 Frankfurt am Main, Lindenstrae 5 Overall production: Druckerei Henrich GmbH D-60528 Frankfurt am Main, Schwanheimer Strae 110 Printed on chlorine-free bleached paper. 3 Liability exclusion The VDA volumes are guidelines available for anyone to use. It is the responsibility of the person using the guidelines to ensure it s correct use in each specific case. The VDA volumes take into account state of the art technology, current at the time of issue. By using the VDA guideline, nobody is relieved of the responsibility for their own actions. Each person acts, in this respect, at their own risk. Liability by VDA, and those persons involved in issuing VDA guidelines, is hereby excluded. If during the use of VDA guidelines, errors or the possibility of misinterpreta- tion are found, it is requested that these be notified to the VDA immediately, so that any possible faults can be corrected. Referenced standards The extracts from standards identified with their DIN number and issue date are reproduced with the permission of the DIN Deutsches Institut fr Nor- mung e.V. (German Institute for Standardization). The version with the latest issue date is definitive for the use of the standard, which can be obtained from the publishers Beuth Verlag GmbH, 10772 Berlin. Copyright The publication, including all it s parts, is protected by copyright. Any use outside of the narrow boundaries of copyright law, without the written per- mission of the VDA, is unauthorized and illegal. This applies in particular to copying, translation, microfilming and the saving and processing in electro- nic systems. 4 5 Preface Increasing demands of the customer market present the quality manage- ment of companies with constantly new and complex tasks. In many industry sectors a comprehensive quality system is part of the company strategy and provides the organizational preconditions to comply with high quality requirements for products and processes. System audits are used to review the effectiveness of quality systems at regular scheduled intervals. The constantly decreasing time span between the concept of a product/ser- vice to it s production/provision requires an ever increasing parallelism of the operations of varying company areas. This results in continuously in- creasing requirements on the process. With increasing quality requirements, self assessment and reduction of in- spection and testing expenditure can also only be realized through capable and controlled processes. Naturally, this applies to the product development process/serial production, as well as the service development process/provision of the service. Company processes have to be constantly monitored to ensure their relia- bility, and be able to implement timely, appropriate corrective actions in case of nonconformities. An important instrument for process monitoring is the process audit. It is an integral part of the VDA strategy Quality standard of the German Automo- tive Industry (VDA 6) as shown in the following diagram. Structure of the new VDA 6 QUALITY STANDARD Strategy QUALITY STANDARD OF THE GERMAN AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY (VDA 6) VDA 6 VDA 6 Part 1 Quality System Audit VDA 6 Part 2 Quality System Audit Services Quality Audit VDA 6 Part 3 Process Audit BasicsVDA 6 Part 5 Product Audit VDA 6 Part 6 Product Audit Services 6 We thank the following involved companies and especially their employees for their input in the preparation of this VDA 6, Part 3 publication: AE Goetze GmbH, Burscheid Becker Automotive System GmbH, Karlsbad BERU Aktiengesellschaft, Ludwigsburg BMW AG, Munich and Regensburg Robert Bosch GmbH, Stuttgart Brose Fahrzeugteile GmbH normally: external 2/internal 1 auditor) ? Representative of the audited organizational/functional unit e.g.: -personnel responsible for the process -specialists -interface representatives ? If necessary, involve specialists (for external audits in coordination with the company to be audited). ? Participants of the closing meeting. The auditors and company to be audited agree the final detailed audit plan. It is recommended, to establish an outline showing the organizational/func- tional units, time/location, participants and reference to the questionnaire. The following points amongst others are to be considered: -Production standstills (Lunch breaks etc.) -Shift changes. Changes at site can be made. The process audit preparation is completed with agreement about admini- strative det