Today, GE Renewable Energy’s Onshore Wind business joined APQP4Wind, a qualitative assurance standard group for the wind industry. Together with current members Vestas and Siemens Gamesa, APQP4Wind now includes 3 of the 4 largest wind turbine OEMs. The purpose of APQP4Wind is to lower costs across the wind industry by setting uniform standards used by suppliers, energy companies and wind turbine manufacturers.

KK Wind Solutions and Vestas successfully completed the first project using the new common standards in the wind industry, APQP4Wind.

After a successful event on the 12 June 2018, the event organizers, Wind Denmark (formerly known as the Danish Wind Industry Association) and the APQP4Wind Board of Directors, have now analyzed the comments and feedback from the more than 100 participants. Results show that participants are happy and hungry for more.

A lot has happened since the APQP4Wind manual was officially launched at an event at Vestas Wind Systems on 25 January of last year. In the year that has passed, the APQP4Wind project has progressed immensely, but the journey has only just begun.

On 5 September, LM Wind Power released the APQP4Wind framework to be followed by its suppliers of direct materials. With the release, LM Wind Power kick-starts the implementation of APQP4Wind in their product development phase and supply chain.

With the APQP4Wind project, it has been possible to formulate a joint approach that will strengthen the production processes in the wind industry. The approach has quickly been adopted by several companies who have already worked it into their existing production processes. The willingness to adopt this new approach to quality planning shows both the need to streamline processes to bring down the cost of energy and the potential for further steps towards a common framework for quality assurance.

Just four weeks after the official go-live of the APQP4Wind project, the first participants have now completed APQP4wind training courses within Management Awareness Training and Specialist Training. The participants were representatives from the organizations who have helped develop the new quality standards around which the training courses revolve.

The many benefits of the APQP4Wind project for the entire value chain in the wind industry were underlined by both speakers and participants at the Kick-Off Event on January 25 hosted by Vestas Wind Systems in Aarhus. The project, which is facilitated by Wind Denmark (formerly known as the Danish Wind Industry Association) and supported by the Danish Industry Foundation, has developed a new framework for quality management in the wind industry that will pave the way for a further reduction in the cost of energy (CoE).