APQP Software
for Advanced Product Quality Planning
inforum runs advanced quality planning along the milestones: each milestone carries a catalog of required evidence, and each item of evidence carries an owner and a due date. The degree of fulfillment for each milestone can be read off at any time, and approvals document the maturity level decision. Suppliers work within the same structure.
The APQP process within one system
Quality is created in planning, not in series production. APQP puts this principle into practice across five phases, with an assessment at every transition and continuous documentation of evidence. IATF 16949 makes this advance planning mandatory in the automotive industry.
The APQP module from inforum fully maps this process. A checklist is assigned to each milestone, and its entries become the individual review items. Every item carries an owner, a processing period, and the evidence itself. Items that do not apply to the project are marked as not relevant and do not count toward the degree of fulfillment.
What makes the difference is distributed ownership. Rather than the project management collecting status reports ahead of the meeting, each owner maintains their own item and submits it for assessment. The review owner accepts it or rejects it with a reason, in which case the item has to be reworked. Maturity is thereby demonstrated, not asserted.
Through the connection to further inforum modules, data from FMEA and Sampling feeds directly into the APQP project. Quality assurance measures are documented as they are implemented. Deviations therefore surface during development rather than at series launch, where corrections become considerably more expensive.
APQP module overview
- Milestones with an evidence catalog
A checklist is assigned to each milestone, and its entries become the review items. A milestone is therefore not a date but a list of verifiable requirements with a sequence and a due date. - Ownership for each item of evidence
Every review item carries an owner, a start and target date, a status, and a comment. The My Items work list shows each participant their open evidence, filterable by due date and status across all projects. - Assessment and rejection
The owner submits their item for assessment. The review owner accepts it or rejects it with a reason. The degree of fulfillment for each milestone follows from the processing status of its items and can be read off at any time, not just at the review meeting. - Review templates
Recurring review types start from a template with milestones and checklists already prepared. This shortens setup and ensures that comparable projects follow the same pattern. - Documented milestone decision
Approvals are recorded with person, date, and comment. This makes it verifiable who confirmed which maturity level, when, and on what basis, for internal reviews as much as for customer audits. Completed reviews are write-protected. - Departments working item by item
Review items can be managed as a separate permission area. Departments work exclusively on their own items, without access to the review as a whole. Suppliers see only their own records and work on their items within the same system. - Modular architecture
APQP is a module of the inforum management software and shares its checklist master data with the Audit module. Review items can themselves become the subject of an audit. The platform can be extended with further modules as required.
Advanced Product Quality Planning with inforum
Maturity level always up to date
Distributed ownership
Overview across all projects
Frequently asked questions about APQP software
What does an APQP project in inforum entail?
A review maps a project’s milestones together with their evidence catalogs. For each milestone, the review items are derived from a checklist, each with an owner, a due date, a status, and the evidence itself. The degree of fulfillment for each milestone follows from the processing status of its items, and approvals document the milestone decision with person, date, and comment.
What does APQP stand for?
APQP stands for Advanced Product Quality Planning. This standard, developed by the AIAG, structures the product development process into five phases and shifts the focus of quality assurance to the planning and development stages. In German-speaking countries, it is most commonly applied in the form of VDA maturity level assessment.
For which industries is APQP relevant?
APQP originated in the automotive industry, where it is mandatory under IATF 16949. The phased approach is also increasingly being applied in mechanical and plant engineering, as well as in regulated sectors such as medical technology, albeit with varying levels of documentation.
What are the phases of an APQP process?
Planning, product design, process design, product and process validation, as well as feedback and corrections after the start of series production. Each phase concludes with an evaluation that determines whether the next phase will be approved.
What does "maturity level assurance" mean according to the VDA?
Maturity assessment evaluates, at defined points in time, whether a development project has reached the agreed-upon stage. The assessment focuses not on the schedule but on the content: whether the FMEA, control plan, test equipment, and supporting documentation are in place. The customer specifies the maturity levels and verifies them throughout the course of the project.
How are APQP and sample approval related?
Sampling concludes the validation phase and verifies that mass production meets the required characteristics. In inforum, it accesses the characteristics and test results from the current project, so that the initial sample test report is generated based on the project history.
How does a maturity level list stay up to date?
The project management does not collect the status. Every review item has its own owner, who maintains it and submits it for assessment. The review owner accepts it or rejects it with a reason. The degree of fulfillment is therefore the actual status at any point in time, not the one last asked for.
inforum for your APQP Projects
Every company has its own processes and requirements. That’s why getting started with inforum begins with a discussion in which we take time for you. Get to know inforum based on your specific processes and requirements and let our team support you from the first question through to successful implementation.
