Hi Sir

what is proto type, Pre launch,production control plan,

Regards
anil gupta

Anil,

There are many steps in a product lifecycle.

A new product starts to manifest itself based on VOC, benchmarking, feasibility studies and market survey in design phase. At this stage of a product cycle DFMEA (Design Failure Mode Effects Analysis) and DRBFM (Design Review Based on Failure Mode) documents should be developed by design team in conjuction with production team.

The next step is to develop prototype part to test the waters about product design which helps to outline a rough sketch around the process steps & sequence, tools, machines, materials and layout of the production line (including the manpower requirements, if demand is known). At this stage Process flow, PFMEA, Control Plans are developed with help of design team and supplier(s). I have experienced including customer in the team pays well on the long term. These documents are tagged as PROTOTYPE phase documents in product life cycle. Production floor uses Prototype control plan as bible to manufacture and verify the product & process are meeting the design intent. Lot of corrections are done on these documents and should be coordinated by project manager or designee.

The next phase in product life cyce is Pre-Launch. Customer gives a letter of intent or a small PO and commitment to buy product from you (an organization) with some disclaimers. At this phase, product is typically made with better understanding and knowledge attained (from proto-type phase) by manufacturing team and design team in consultation with customer. The corrections made to Prototype PF, PFMEA & CP are now titled as PRE-LAUNCH documents as the product produced during this phase is sent to customer for trying out in their production lines and identify the packaging, sequencing, logisitical, etc. details.

Next phase in the product life cycle is Production when customer gives you a order and schedule to produce and deliver parts using standard packing, delivery schedule and other tangible & untangible requirements. The manufacturing team typically has responsibility to convert the Prelaunch documents to Production documents and release them offically with a set handed over to Customer (in automotive it is called PPAP) and release the same to the production line, suppliers, etc.

Hope this generalized explanation helps. If there are more questions, please feel free to ask.