3 - Jacobs University

Finally, the quality auditing process has to encompass the entire supplier pool, meaning that
suppliers without any quality related problems and non-critical production processes should still be
subject to regular quality auditing, however, not with the same intensity as in the previous cases.
All the points mentioned above can be used to prioritize quality audits and serve as a basis for
the definition of a quality auditing plan, which accounts for the specifics of the automotive sector.
Figure 8 presents an idealized priority list for planning second-party quality audits.
High Priority
(Very Frequent Auditing)
• Suppliers with critical quality problems
• New and unknown suppliers
• Suppliers in fast developing regions
(focus on personnel qualification and knowledge management)
• Suppliers of components for standardized platforms
Medium Priority (Frequent Auditing)
• Suppliers with large supply networks such as suppliers of complex
automotive systems (focus on sub-supplier management)
• Suppliers with minor quality problems
• Suppliers with critical production processes
Low Priority
(Regular re-Auditing)
• Regular requalification of suppliers without quality problems
Figure 8: Idealized priority list for planning second-party quality audits in the automotive sector.
Figure 9 presents the average age of the audit evaluations performed by Volkswagen auditors in
different regions worldwide. The empirical data shows a lot of similarities with the recommendations
for the audit planning presented in Figure 8. Thus for example, in developed regions such as
North America and Germany the average age of the performed audits is considerably larger than
the age of audits in developing regions such as China, India, or Russia. In the light of the discussion
in Section 4.1 it is reasonable to expect that the company faces indeed a lot more quality challenges
in the latter three regions and therefore needs to evaluate its suppliers there more frequently.
Volkswagen’s auditing strategy accounts also for the growing complexity of the supplier pool
(see Section 4.3). In recent years the capability of Volkswagen’s first tier suppliers to manage
their own supply chains has received increasing importance and the number of the conducted subsupplier
audits has been steadily increasing 8 . One particular point, which definitely has to be
8 Source: personal communication with Volkswagen AG employees.
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