A method for product quality management throughout its life cycle

Due to the development of information technology, computer is becoming a useful and effective tool to support engineering activities in product design and manufacturing. A numerical model of product created in CAD environment is used to perform engineering simulation such as kinematics, dynamics, failure, etc. However, it is a nominal representation of product and does not deal with variations generated along the product life cycle. The risk is then that the designed product does not fully meet the requirements of customers and users. Thus, this paper proposes a method that allows managing the quality of product during its life cycle. The method permits to model variation sources during the product life cycle and managing causes and consequences of these variations at design stage.