A hybrid approach to enhance an automotive manufacturing process using QFD and VSM techniques.

The emergence of new competitors in the automotive industry has obliged the firms to look into new forms of developing new model cars reducing the time to introduce them into the market at lower costs. During the development of the product there are unlimited unexpected failures that require reworking, increasing the cost and time to reach the market. Most of the defects easily can be eliminated but some others can put at risk the product during the manufacturing process. The principal issues identified are related to complex assemblies which are not recyclable or hard to recycle, cost and precision of complex assemblies, reliability and safety of new light weight material proposals and general complex structures that are very heavy requiring complex handling systems or fixtures. In this work the hybrid approach incorporated, Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and Value Stream Mapping (VSM) methodologies solves some of the mentioned issues for a given case study by combining the use of benchmarking, quality function deployment, cost worth analysis and value stream mapping to achieve a better product and process development. (1) A recyclable product is developed during the initial phase of the method. (2) A complex assembly is eliminated in the first phase and a reduction in weight. (3) The conducted benchmarking gets advantage of the latest innovations in the market and by exploring other fields there is an opportunity to integrate solutions in our final product. (4) The proposed methodology explores a variety of solutions which are evaluated with the use of the software: Systems2win. (5) Different scenarios emerge from each one of the the concept proposals which are then compared and final conclusions are drawn. (6) At the end the output provides the best solution according to the needs of the company.