AUTOMOTIVE – WHEN THE DISPUTE IS IN THE MEASUREMENT SYSTEM, NOT IN THE PRODUCT
Your supplier’s certificates say conforming. Your incoming inspection says not. Before the discussion escalates – 8D reports, sorting, claims – there is a statistical question to answer: are the two measurement systems actually seeing the same thing?
The EPT Automotive Division brings the statistical culture of collaborative interlaboratory studies to the IATF 16949 supply chain: the same core tools you already use – MSA, SPC, capability – extended from the single plant to the customer–supplier relationship.
From MSA to the supply chain
IATF 16949 already asks you to know your measurement systems: Gage R&R tells you how much of the observed variation comes from the instrument and the operators within one plant. A collaborative interlaboratory study answers the next question – the one that matters in a customer–supplier dispute: how much variation exists between plants, between laboratories, between measurement systems? It is the same analysis-of-variance logic of MSA, applied at supply-chain level, following international statistical standards (ISO 5725, ISO 13528).
The result is a number both parties can accept: the real reproducibility of the measurement across the chain – the objective basis for acceptance criteria, correlation agreements and conformity decisions.
Two ways to work with us
Your supply-chain statistician, on demand. With the EPT subscription, your team books two-hour sessions with our specialists through the online agenda: MSA studies to set up or review, capability analyses for PPAP submissions, SPC questions, supplier data that doesn’t add up. Recurring needs, recurring support.
Supply-chain studies. When the question involves more than one party – a correlation study between your laboratory and your supplier’s, the qualification of a test method across the chain, a dispute that needs a defendable answer – we design a collaborative study: statistical protocol, anonymous data collection through the platform, processing to international standards, and a complete dossier.
Typical questions we answer
- Two plants measure the same characteristic and get different capability indices: process difference or measurement difference?
- Customer and supplier laboratories disagree on conformity near the tolerance limit: what is the real uncertainty of the measurement, and what guard band does it justify?
- A test method must be transferred to a new supplier: how do you qualify the transfer with data instead of opinions?
- An audit finding questions your MSA approach: is your study designed, executed and interpreted correctly?
Bring the numbers before the claim does.
Bring the numbers before the claim does.Request the subscription offer for recurring statistical support, or book a consultation to discuss a supply-chain study.
