21 March 2011: Stephan Sprink

The MINI – who does not know this car? The car has been an eye-catcher on the streets for years and since MINI’s cooperation with BMW, it has “grown up”. This is really a success story and nowadays almost 7 million BMW MINIs drive on our streets all over the world. Meeting high quality standards is BMW-MINI’s top priority. So the implementation of a SPC project based on Q-DAS software products was quite obvious.

In the past, measurement and test data was recorded manually by using pen and paper in the assembly department. Data were collected once a week in order to conduct a rudimentary process analysis. A real statistical evaluation including a “drill-down functionality” was not feasible because of the data structure. The first Q-DAS licenses were installed in 2003. These licenses were single-workstation solutions, i.e. there was no system network. However, the single-workstation solutions provided the basis for implementing the Q-DAS software in the entire final vehicle assembly...