30 April 2012: Stephan Niemczyk, Opel Autombile GmbH, & Stefan Weber

AQDEF standardizes the recording and cross-system exchange of quality information and is thus groundbreaking in metrology. As experience in practice impressively shows, the data exchange format helps to reach the consistently demanded simplification, cost cutting and acceleration of data management.

AQDEF is based on the Q-DAS ASCII transfer format that has been established in the automotive industry for a long time and became a requirement for the suppliers of measuring equipment that has been specified in corporate guidelines at an early stage. Companies like Audi, BMW, Bosch and General Motors were pioneers of this practice. By consistently demanding a certified data interface in the Q-DAS ASCII transfer format, the correct provision of data was ensured for statistical evaluation through standard tools like qs-STAT. The advantages of a standardized data format for the companywide recording and processing of quality information quickly became obvious. The compact, simple and transparent structure, its high flexibility and the specification revealed right from the start also contributed to the increasing acceptance and use of this format.

Due to its successfulness, many different corporate and plant-specific individual solutions of the data interface have been created over the years. They all have a similar approach in common; however, these solutions require customized modifications in each individual case affecting costs and the introduction effort. In order to establish a company-wide standard, users of the data interface from the automotive and supplier industry created a work group developing a uniform and adapted specification. Representatives of renowned companies like Adam Opel AG, BMW Group, Daimler AG, Ford Werke GmbH, General Motors Company, Getrag Corporate Group, Robert Bosch GmbH and Volkswagen AG specified AQDEF and first published it in 2006. Back then this data format was called Automotive Quality Data Exchange Format. Since the format is used by a rising number of companies even outside the automotive industry, the format was finally renamed as Advanced Quality Exchange Format in 2011...