Term:

2025/06 – 2026/03

 

Supplier Quality Manager in the automotive industry

 

Area of responsibility:

  • 8 professionally managed employees

Company:

  • PI miCos GmbH

Industry:

  • Hexapoden
  • Linear systems

Turnover*: Group

  • 286 Mio. € (2023)

Employees*: Group

  • ca. 1261

Situation in the company:

  • The previous manager was an interim manager who wanted to leave the company quickly for his own reasons, so a replacement was needed spontaneously (follow-up project to Karlsruhe)

Country:

  • Germany (Eschbach)

* Access on 20.04.2026

Physik Instrumente (PI) GmbH & Co. KG (Karlsruhe) im Ranking der deutschen Top-Unternehmen

 

Task:

  • Evaluation of existing quality processes and development of an optimization strategy
  • Conducting vulnerability analyses and developing recommendations for action
  • Preparation of regular (weekly/monthly/semi-annually) reports
  • Relocation of approximately 500 items
  • Optimizing process flows from activities, coordinating with other plants, and providing training (production stoppages, supplier management, PPAP, etc.)

Measures:

  • Successful merger of the two shop floor departments: QA and VV (many synergies and time savings)
  • Consistent implementation of shop floor procedures, including quality alerts
  • Holding crisis meetings with customers
  • Introduction of regular joint meetings with QA staff
  • Transparent communication at the employee level
  • Development of an AI-based noise testing station
  • Introduction of a practical PPAP checklist (systemic requirement was over 200 points)

Successes:

  • Visible improvement (through transparency) in the complaint rate (Dead On Arrival) by 42% (annual average of the last two years compared to 2025, down from 69 to 40)
  • Implementation of a lived (complaints visible) shop floor in production
  • Initial positive tests with the AI-based noise testing station
  • Successful customer and production facility audit
  • TÜV surveillance audit without major deviations
  • Established understanding of quality planning within the company

Special Challenge:

  • The interim quality manager was no longer available within 3 days.
  • The team existed only in small groups and not as a whole.
  • High number of complaints (Dead On Arrival).
  • Staff departures led to a bottleneck in addressing outstanding issues.
  • Numerous job interviews were conducted to manage the workload.
  • Quality assurance with limited resources.
  • Relocation of approximately 500 items to our own facility.

 

Share on the network

Scroll to Top