APQP4Wind welcomes ZF Wind Power as Board Member
Building on experience from the automotive industry
ZF Wind Power is one of the world’s largest wind turbine gearbox manufacturers with a track record of more than 70,000 turbines with their gearboxes and 6 different service and manufacturing locations around the world.
As ZF Wind Power is a business unit of ZF Friedrichshafen AG, a German manufacturer within the automotive industry, the company holds many years of experience within APQP and saw the need for specifying the methodology for the wind industry early on.
Before implementing APQP4Wind, many of the APQP procedures had been implemented in ZF Wind Power for several years, but it was always a matter of tweaking the automotive standards to the wind industry, where different customers asked for different requirements.
This made ZF Wind Power realize the necessity for defining common requirements and having a common standard which was specified for the wind industry. As a result, ZF Wind Power embraced the development of APQP4Wind from the start, and they embedded APQP4Wind completely in their global development process in 2019.
Their experience with APQP from the automotive industry is one of the main reasons why ZF Wind Power’s participation in the Board will be beneficial to APQP4Wind’s vision to mature the global wind industry, according to the Chairman of the APQP4Wind Board and Senior Specialist at Vestas Wind Systems, Henning Bach Jokumsen:
“As ZF Wind Power has its roots in the automotive industry, the addition of the company to the Board of Directors is a great advantage for APQP4Wind. Their ability to draw on the industry’s many years of experience within APQP will help us take the best of APQP from the automotive industry and mature the wind industry further.
Helps improve the wind industry
Director of Global Quality at ZF Wind Power, Erik Dom also holds many years of experience within APQP. He has more than 25 years of experience within quality assurance, of which 15 of those years are from the automotive industry, and he is passionate about quality and working closely together to drive each other to the limits.
As an APQP4Wind Board Member, Erik Dom will draw on this experience to see which aspects from the automotive industry can be incorporated into the wind industry as well as his ambition to improve the wind industry in cooperation with OEMs and other suppliers:
“I am very glad to become a member of the APQP4Wind Board of Directors, as it enables me to work together with other big companies on developing APQP4Wind and improving the wind industry further. To the Board, I expect to draw on experience from the automotive industry to make APQP4Wind more practical and concrete and help find a balance between the theoretical and practical parts of the methodology.
Since implementing APQP4Wind, ZF Wind Power has streamlined and created a standardization of their internal processes. The methodology helped them work more standardized internally because it helped ensure more common requirements from the OEMs and thereby facilitate aligned procedures.
Growing the global collaboration
The APQP4Wind Board of Directors already consists of representatives from Vestas Wind Systems, KK Wind Solutions, GE Renewable Energy, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, LM Wind Power and Wind Denmark. The Board is responsible for all decisions regarding strategy, marketing, project governance and contractual obligations within the APQP4Wind organization.
With the addition of Erik Dom as a representative of ZF Wind Power to the Board of Directors, the Board will not only be able to draw on automotive experience, but also strengthen the global network.
An important part of APQP4Wind’s “Go Global” Strategy is to grow the network across borders, and the addition of ZF Wind Power will help with doing just that, General Manager of APQP4Wind, Kim Nedergaard Jacobsen expresses:
“APQP4Wind is pleased to welcome Erik Dom from ZF Wind Power as a new member of the APQP4Wind Board of Directors. With locations in Belgium, China, Germany, USA and especially India, we are certain that having ZF Wind Power on the APQP4Wind Board will be beneficial to the global collaboration regarding quality assurance.
By having ZF Wind Power on the Board, APQP4Wind hopes that the company’s experience within APQP from being part of an automotive company and their global presence will help strengthen the cooperation across borders between OEMs and suppliers and mature the wind industry further.