Play Now: For your Project Management Professional (PMP)® exam get PMP Training on your phone from The PM PrepCast: Marygracesoleil Ericson Advanced product quality planning (or APQP) is a framework of procedures and techniques used to develop products in industry, particularly the automotive industry. This interview about APQP with Marygracesoleil Ericson (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded one day before the excellent Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. Marygracesoleil was an attendee of the congress (not a speaker) who contacted me and suggested that we do an interview on a topic relevant to her industry. She is the PMO manager of a car audio equipment manufacturer, leading a team of program managers who build designs and coponents for the audio divisions in the automotive industry. If you have a premium sound system in your car then you might be using their speakers. For more information about APQP please visit the APQP Wikipedia Page. Episode Transcript Below are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete transcript is available to Premium subscribers only. Introduction Cornelius Fichtner:   In this episode of the Project Management Podcast™ we look at APQP which stands for Advanced Product Quality Planning. A framework of procedures and techniques used to develop product particularly in the automotive industry. Hello and welcome to the Project Management Podcast™ at www.pm-podcast.com . We are coming to you live and one day before the excellent 2017 PMI Global Conference in Chicago. I am Cornelius Fichtner and with me right now is Marygracesoleil Ericson. Hello, Marygrace. Marygracesoleil Ericson:   Hi, how are you? Cornelius:   I’m doing very well, thank you. And thank you so much for stopping by a day before the conference. Marygracesoleil:   That’s right. Cornelius:   And doing this interview. Marygracesoleil:   I’m very excited. Cornelius:   So, you are the director of Program Management for a car audio manufacturing. Marygracesoleil:   That’s right. Cornelius:   That’s as much as we can say. Marygracesoleil:   Yeah. I lead a team of program managers that builds designs and builds component on the audio division for the automotive industry. Cornelius:   So, anybody listening to this podcast right now, driving somewhere on the freeway, listening it through their car speakers, there is a chance that it comes from your company. Marygracesoleil:   That’s right. Only the good speakers. Cornelius: [laughs] Right. We wanted to talk today about APQP—the Advanced Product Quality Planning. Ooh, that’s a mouthful. What is it? Marygracesoleil:   APQP is basically the disciplined approach to develop PM launching new products. So, it’s the process that we follow from cradle to grave. How do we build components from when we receive the scope from the customer, how we design it, what deliverables we have up until we launch it into mass production. So that’s what we follow. Cornelius:   And when you say the process that we follow, who is “we”? Marygracesoleil:   All automotive industries follow this. All components that deliver to the automotive OEMs need to follow the APQP process. Cornelius:   OK. So, we’re talking Ford, Chrysler, Toyota—whatever car you’re driving. Marygracesoleil:   Yeah. Cornelius:   If you are somebody who delivers components for those cars, that’s the process you follow. Marygracesoleil:   Right. And in some of the Fareast customers—they might not call it the APQP but the deliverables are the same. Cornelius:   OK. And my understanding is that APQP came into being because there are so many suppliers who not only supply to one car manufacturer but to multiple car manufacturers and they did not want to have to follow through your four different set of processes and