In our development projects, we clarify at an early stage – by means of an extensive feasibility study – whether process risks may arise in the production cycle and initiate effective corrective measures in order to eliminate the risks immediately. In addition, experience from completed projects is incorporated into production planning. We analyze and evaluate the product concept and the planned production process using standardized methods of analysis. This allows us to objectively determine possible risks and eliminate them effectively. The structured procedure reduces both development and process times in production. At the same time, potential defects in the product are avoided, costs are reduced and warranty costs minimized – in this way, we can deliver sophisticated, reliable products to our customers right from the start.

By creating uniform risk analysis tools, we are able to achieve additional improvements. Standardized software, coordinated evaluation guidelines, reduced administrative processes and multilingual databases help to structure development processes more effectively and actively support our global production strategies.

Leading-edge testing technologies ensure high-quality standards

Ongoing development of quality management in production
We have developed classic quality management – 100 percent inspection before creation of value, process control with statistical methods and 100 percent inspection after creation of value – even further, with new areas of focus. We systematically examine production processes and incorporate failure prevention measures at critical points. In complex handling and assembly processes, highly effective safeguarding effects can usually be produced with small but crucial improvements. Automatic inspections, performed as part of the process step control, indicate defects as soon as they occur, enable immediate correction and increase the overall reliability of the process considerably. As a result of ongoing development of the test method for pistons, the inspections that take place during production are now integrated into an automatic measuring machine, instead of the several items of test equipment required previously. This means that the necessary process control can be performed to the desired degree of accuracy considerably more quickly on one piece of equipment. This reduces response times to a quarter of their previous level. Other advantages, besides better production control, include simplified data collection and the possibility of trend analysis.