Risk Filter
A risk management method aiming at the comprehensive identification and evaluation of development risks and process risks of systems and/or components and the definition of measures for risk minimization.
The identification of risks results from asking questions and analyzing the gained experiences (lessons learned) from previous projects. These risks are evaluated and transferred into a risk control list.
Robust Design (RD)
A development method aiming at improving the efficiency in the research phase and development phase in order to produce high quality products quickly and at low costs. The basic principle of the RD is to improve the product quality by minimizing the effect of a failure (or variation) cause without eliminating the cause itself. This is achieved by optimizing the product and process development procedures aiming at a very low sensitivity of the product against the various sources of variation.
Four general guidelines may be formulated:
- The product performance should be insensitive to changes in raw material quality.
- The products and processes should be robust against quality fluctuations of the manufacturing process.
- The product designs should be insensitive to changes in the context of use.
- The disposable development time should be used as productive as possible via a structured procedure for product and process development.
Various instruments are the basic pillars of the method. It is crucial to establish a reliable quality indicator that helps to assess the impact of changes of a development parameter on the product performance. Furthermore, efficient testing methods need to be identified in order to obtain reliable information on the development parameters. These should still retain their validity even when other parameters are changed during subsequent development activities. The necessary tools such as signal noise ratios or orthogonal fields can be borrowed from the methodology of statistical design of experiments.
Root Cause Analysis (RCA)
The root cause is the triggering basic event that leads in the beginning of a causal chain in a sequence of events ultimatively to a (usually unwanted) effect. The RCA is a method to determine these cause initiating events and to illustrate the sequence in a causal chain. Starting point of investigation is the (unwanted) effect.
Run@Rate
Production test under mass production conditions at supplier's site. It takes place shortly before SOP and is about identifying potential manufacturing problems. A Run@Rate helps to analyze whether the production process is able to produce the contracted volumes at ease.
The PPAP is a similar concept. While the Run@Rate focuses on the quantity of parts, the PPAP focuses on their quality.