New Supplier Introduction. Risk Minimization through Supplier Quality Management using the Example of a Chinese Automotive Supplier (PDF)

Diploma Thesis from the year 2018 in the subject Engineering - Mechanical Engineering, grade: 1.3, University of applied sciences Frankfurt a. M., language: English, abstract: This thesis will examine supplier risk management and provide prospects to minimize these risks. Thus, the thesis will identify latent quality risks for automotive companies by introducing unknown suppliers and discloses methodological measures to minimize proactively such risks through the systematic of supplier quality management. The research is going to contribute a solution approach on this research problem that can be applied as a guideline to minimize supplier quality risks. Consequently, the theoretical framework for quality management and risk management will be examined by this thesis and existing tools and methods are compiled. A research study will be elaborated with findings and analysis from expert's knowledge. These research findings will be combined subsequently with the theoretical framework and will culminate in a recommended approach to achieve supplier risk minimization.

With an increasing demand, the automotive industry must deal with the reliability of vehicles and components. The success of many companies is based on the quality of their products, especially for companies operating successfully on the global market. In fact, all the car manufacturers as well as their suppliers are expanding their production capacities in the growth region China. Thereby new, innovative suppliers need to be established which are quality-capable. Of great importance is high quality, absolute delivery reliability together with unrivaled low prices. Stable partnerships are required with suppliers to rely on in the long-term. A New Supplier Introduction represents a risk for quality particularly when the supplier starts from a Greenfield. The major problem when nominating new suppliers is that there is no security in advance for the quality performance of the new supplier in series and that the companies depend on their suppliers with their quality performance. The nomination of the dedicated suppliers has to be done without field experience or quality performance key indicators.