Samenvatting

The student executed his graduation assigment at Mitsubishi Turbocharger and Engine Europe B.V. (MTEE) within the Purchase department and more specifically the SQDE (Supplier Quality Development Engineering) team. This team is responsible for all matters related to suppliers, and with one of those matters there is a problem: SPAR (Sample Part Acceptance Report).
SPAR is documentation used to show MTEE that the sample parts (prototypes) the supplier delivers are of the required quality, so that they can be used for testing. However, the problem MTEE is having, is that SPAR is rarely ever done and in those cases where it is done, the quality of the supplied documentation is not as MTEE requires it. Therefore MTEE has asked the student to (re)design the SPAR procedure, so that it fulfills all demands and is feasible to perform within the supply chain.
In order to do this the student performed his research in two ways: deskresearch and fieldresearch. For the deskresearch, the student analysed all available data and found that in 85% of all cases SPAR is indeed never even sent. The reasons for this were examined by means of fieldresearch, more specifically interviews. The student interviewed several people from the Purchase, Engineering and Quality departments in order to get a complete picture of the entire process. From these interviews, the following could be concluded:
1. The requirements are not always clear or too steep for suppliers
2. No-one feels responsible to check the documentation
3. No-one follows up with suppliers
In those interviews, a future state was also examined. As a future state, it was defined that SPAR should always be done whenever MTEE requests it, requirements are always being met and that everything is checked within MTEE to see if it is up to par, after which suppliers will be informed. From this future state, it is clear that there is a GAP to close. In order to close the GAP, the student determined the following had to be done:
 There needs to be more clarity about SPAR contents for suppliers
 There needs to be more clarity about the SPAR process within MTEE
In order to do this, the student did the following:
 Design a standard form that is both clear and easy to use
 Design a process flowchart to indicate what steps need to be taken and who is responsible
 Design a new document to track all the changes to SPAR as well as inform employees of the new situation
After designing those items, the student discussed it with all parties involved one more time, to ensure what he had come up with was what they had in mind. And all agreed that the newly designed situation is a big improvement over the current one. All that is left, is to initiate a trial period during which the new situation will be tested.
After the trial period, the student recommends regularly examining the procedure to see if it is still functional. As situations can change, that also means the systems have to change with them to accommodate the changes.