Quality Auditing in the Automotive Industry
Every industry requires stringent quality control and certification for improved product quality.
The automotive industry is no different. In fact, in particular, the industry cannot afford to miss. Not just for enhanced customer experience but also the safety of the vehicle owners and pedestrians.
When it comes to the automotive industry, standards can become complicated or obsolete real quick as customer expectations frequently change with technology trends and craving for new hanging personalized experiences.
Automotive manufacturers’ challenge is to keep up with the technological trends, personalized experience, and environmental changes to satisfy customer expectations and improve performance metrics – all these without falling short of quality standards.
Common quality standard in the Automotive industry
The automotive sector has one of the fastest-growing markets for electronics systems, surpassing computers. Modern cars are incredibly complex, with several functionalities ranging from infotainment, driver assistance systems to communications.
All these functionalities and other car electronics systems with common, reliable vehicle design factors such as longevity, ruggedness, reliability, and no interference meet specific industry standards non-negotiable for manufacturers.
An automotive manufacturer must meet the three most recognized industry standards from the manufacturing process to testing. These essential standards are IATF 16949, AEC-Q100, and AEC-Q200. Let’s take a look at what these three critical standards entail.
IATF 16949
This standard is a quality management system in the automotive industry that combines with customer-specific requirements to detect defects, maintain improvement, and reduce wastage in the supply chain.
It’s previously known as ISO/TS 16949 and is often implemented with less mandatory ISO 9001:2015.
AEC-Q100
Established by three prominent automotive manufacturers, Automotive Electronics Council introduced AEC-Q100 as a standard for quality system standard and across-the-board part qualification.
It is a failure checking mechanism that raises failure mechanism test Qualification for new products and procedure for packaged Integrated Circuits to ensure quality.
AEC-Q200
AEC-Q200 is a globally recognized standard for passive electronics that emphasize stress resistance. The requirement was born out of the need for the automotive industry to have strict requirements for electronics that work perfectly in an automotive environment in all settings, such as temperature, resistance, and pressure for safety and enhanced user experience.
The standard makes engineers’ lives more comfortable as the individual specifications for most of the components are clearly defined.
Measuring the quality of air according to the Automotive Industry
Compressed air plays a vital role in automotive manufacturing processes from powering robotics to surface treatments that include plasma activation, ionization, shot blasting, sandblasting, and body painting.
These aspects of manufacturing also require standardized air quality. To ensure that, ISO 8573-1 serves as the specifications for standardized air quality and the level of contamination that can be overlooked.
The document in the ISO 8573 series developed by International Organization Standard, the world’s most recognized publisher of international standards, is strictly adhered to by compressed air experts trusted by manufacturers.
They strictly adhere to the minimum amount of primary contaminants of water vapour, oil content, and solid particles.