Supplier Quality management and IATF 16949 milestones application in an electric charging system company

The following thesis work has as object the Supplier Quality management and IATF (International Automotive Task Force) 16949 quality standard milestones application in an electric charging system company. Original problem this work has to face is the quality approach to be utilized in product and production qualification of the EV (Electric Vehicle) charging systems. After a briefly EV charging system overview, the thesis work shifts directly into the “quality problem” analysis. The “quality problem” corresponds to the mismatch between quality standard application between suppliers and customers of EV charging systems. In fact, the first category generally applied a less severe standard, like as the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) 9001. On other hand, the second category in most of cases represents the Automotive companies, this lasts following IATF 16949 standard. IATF 16949 standard is very specific quality standard, that require quality structure suppliers respecting ISO 9001 are not able to respect. Thesis work takes as reference a charging system company, the Free2Move eSolutions company. Purpose of this thesis work is to explain how Free2Move eSolutions Quality Department tries to solve the “quality problem”. First of all the customer quality requirements were analysed. Then, a bilateral analysis on company quality instruments and customer quality requirements is performed. So, thesis work proposes a series of procedures, modules and methodological approaches to solve gap between original instruments an requested requirements. Basically, company Quality Department decides to implement some IATF 16949 tools, in order to ensure customer quality requirements. Last step is the procedures and modules implementation during time. This last step follows a timeline of about one year, starting from 01/2022 to 12/2022. In order to monitor procedures and modules implementation, thesis work takes into consideration three case studies. These lasts represents three product Free2Move eSolutions company develop during analysed timeline. Each product represents a step in procedures and modules implementation and the product analysis on quality point of view, it allows to give a measurable value of the quality level achieved. Each step is so analysed as follow: first of all thesis work describes the case study product, then it shows the quality state of art that is on place during target product development phase and at least thesis work analyses the results achieved in quality point of view. Conclusion chapter, on one hand, underlines the “quality problem” solution that the Free2Move eSolutions company is able to achieve during analysed timeline and, on other hand, it gives some suggestions to following possible quality upgrades, in a continuous improvement logic.