AUDITORIUM - Dekra

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Quality management In their attempt to guarantee quality, many companies demand more or less total transparency from their suppliers. This gives them a detailed overview of their suppliers’ know-how. If the knowledge is abused, this can threaten the supplier’s competitive performance. It is precisely such know-how which gives smaller and medium-size supplier companies their competitive edge. One automotive supplier has now taken systematic and comprehensive steps to protect its intellectual property. Protecting intellectual property How suppliers can protect their know-how In the first step the management analysed the know-how content of the parts types and processes together with the staff. 6
No access for unauthorised people. Production security zones are defined which are no longer accessible for external visitors. The quality management standards regulate how supplier companies should handle their customers’ property (ISO 9001:2000, section 7.5.4 “Customer property”). However, there is no clause in the QM standards regulating how much information the client company is entitled to concerning the supplier’s structures and processes. Car makers in particular often demand extensive dis - closure of working methods and techniques. In the past the Hirschvogel Automotive Group has already suffered from clients exploiting their access to information on Hirschvogel’s own processes. The management of the Hirschvogel Automotive Group drew conclusions from the experience. It set up the “Know-how Protection” project. This involved gradually laying down rules, and putting them into action, to protect the company’s own know-how. The first step involved the Hirschvogel management producing an analysis of existing processes and of the different types of parts. The know-how content of all parts types was checked, and protection-worthy processes classified. Security areas were defined and marked in the production area. Access to these areas is forbidden for external visitors. A solicitor‘s office was enlisted to provide legal advice. Hirschvogel Automotive Group The Hirschvogel Automotive Group was founded in 1938. With a workforce of 2,652, it posted sales of 524 million euros in 2007. This means that Hirschvogel is one of the largest family-run automotive suppliers in the world in the field of massive forming and machining. The company manufactures five product groups at six locations worldwide. Hirschvogel is the technology leader in traditional drop forging, in warm and cold forming and in aluminium forging. The next step involved providing the employees with training. In these courses they were informed about the individual rules and regulations, and the employees were sensitised to the risks of losing know-how. The staff responsible for representing the com pany externally have the dilemma of not knowing in certain situations whether it is best to withhold valuable know-how on the one hand, or to demonstrate the company’s expertise on the other. These employees were given special guidelines regarding customer contact. Task areas involving a high degree of customer contact, such as submitting tenders, processing complaints or making sample inspections following process changes, were addressed here. Regarding the submission of tenders, Hirschvogel has revised the level of detail it provides in the setting parameters for capacity provision. Before the project, this data was previously issued to the customer, but now the relevant documents can only be viewed at Hirschvogel. In complaints handling, use of the 8-D method in particular caused problems. Technical process details were often disclosed which contain confidential know-how. Guidelines now alert the employees to which information they can and cannot pass on. In the case of sample inspections following process changes, too, new regulations have been defined regarding the forwarding of information. For the assessment and approval processes, the customer now only receives the overall result of the generally described process change. More detailed information, such as parameter details, is no longer forwarded. A newly established management circle monitors implementation of all the defined guidelines and regulations. In the final step the customers and the general public were also informed. The greatest difficulty was defending the necessity of the measures. In many cases it was only possible to convince the customer of the necessity and the rightness of the protection measures in personal meetings. > Your contact: Wolfgang Heppel, Fon +49.931.4606 - 700, wolfgang.heppel@dekra-certification.com 7
Page 1 and 2: AUDITORIUM Specialist publication f
Page 3 and 4: Editorial Skilled employees - your
Page 5: It’s people who make the differen
Page 9 and 10: Proud winners of the 2008 DEKRA Awa
Page 11 and 12: Sustainability New ideas help unlea
Page 13 and 14: There are roughly 50,000 IT centres
Page 15 and 16: Intensification and restructuring o
Page 17 and 18: “Without the certified management
Page 19 and 20: In a nutshell Oleksandr Litkovskyy

AUDITORIUM - Dekra

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