Improvements for Product Safety Requirements Compliance Management Practices Case Study: Automotive Battery Industry

Abstract

Recently, advancements in technology improve product safety considerations globally. High-tech equipment and tools become more accessible for organizations to manage manufacturing effectively and safely. In this way, they focus on producing safer products that are qualified for public consumption. With the introduction of clean energy technologies on roads, product safety discussions about electric vehicles increased simultaneously. Especially for globally operating battery manufacturers, demonstrating their compliance with international regulations, standardizations, and customer requirements poses difficulties. Unreliable and inadequate compliance management processes may obstruct operations and decrease competition capability in the global market. Throughout this thesis, safety-related requirements compliance inside an EV battery manufacturer company is investigated in accordance with a combined compliance management model. This model comprises the following steps: identifying and discovering the requirements, interpreting the requirements, identifying possible changes required in products or operations, identifying and evaluating compliance risks, compliance decisions specifying a method of compliance, communication, implementation, and evaluation and monitoring. In this thesis, safety-related requirements cover regulations, legislations, standards, and customer-specific requirements. A qualitative research approach with a descriptive case study is adopted in the thesis in order to provide in-depth outcomes related to the research topic. The findings from investigation of literature and semi-structured interviews are utilized in the process of discovering the company’s current status and encountered problems in management of compliance with product safety requirements. With the help of the findings and examination of the best practices regarding compliance management processes, improvement opportunities for the EV battery manufacturer company are recommended. The findings of the thesis show although the current applications of the case company in management of compliance with product safety requirements are not in poor quality, there still exist some parts to improve their insufficiencies and missing sides. Need for more skilled people for interpreting and comparing the requirements with the company’s operations, confronting language differences in discovering global requirements, not having an efficient communication process, and unclear responsibilities are some of the findings of the research as improvement needs. This thesis proposes possible enhancement activities for the company by exploring literature, and previously conducted research related to best practices for management of compliance with product safety requirements. Different solutions are listed as following: management system adoption, efficient documentation, regular compliance checks, global design file, benchmarking, external support, requirements follow-up by product safety people, platform to reach all customers, international networking, product safety and compliance plan, attending to standards drafting processes, comparison between different market standards, global product committee, defining common minimum requirements, and continuous training for people involved in product safety. Overall, this study contributes to the company and academics in the context of managing compliance of product safety requirements for globally operating manufacturers by investigating previous studies, regulations, standards and an EV battery manufacturer company.