Acronyms

APQP (Advanced Product Quality Planning) is a process developed in the late 1980’s by a commission of experts gathered from the ‘Big Three’ US automobile manufacturers: Ford, GM and what was then Chrysler. This commission invested five years to analyse the then-current automotive development and production status in the US, Europe and especially in Japan. At the time, the success of the Japanese automotive companies was starting to be remarkable in the US market.

The Production Part Approval Process is used in the automotive supply chain to establish confidence in component suppliers and their production processes, by demonstrating that:-

“….all customer engineering design record and specification requirements are properly understood by the supplier and that the process has the potential to produce product consistently meeting these requirements during an actual production run at the quoted production rate.” Version 4 March 1st 2006

Other acronyms:

• EBITDA = Earnings before I tricked the dumb auditor.
• EBIT = Earnings before irregularities and tampering.
• CEO = Chief Embezzlement Officer.
• CFO = Corporate Fraud Officer.
• NAV = Normal Andersen valuation.
• EPS = Eventual prison sentence.