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The engineering team plays a key role in a product development process: it is their responsibility to make information on the latest design level available to all other teams (suppliers, manufacturing, finance, purchasing, logistics, etc.). When the design achieves the production level, it is then considered released for production. For the release process to be complete, two categories of information are needed: the CAD related information (geometry, dimensions, etc.) and the management information (in which product the components will be used, how many of them are needed for each product, etc.). At Ford, the CAD information is stored in a database system called TeamCenter Enterprise (TCE) and the management information is stored in the World Wide Engineering Release System (WERS). Unfortunately, these two systems are not yet able to communicate to each other.

One of the main aspects in the system engineering is to manage interfaces, especially when using a modular vehicle partitioning. The use of Computer Aided Design has greatly optimized the product development process, mainly regarding higher precision and quality of first prototypes, which means that products must get to market faster, carrying less risk of failure. To achieve that, it is important to have a multifunctional engineering team discussing all interfaces since early stages of a project by performing Compatibility Reviews between all parts and subsystems before starting Production Authority Release, which means that design should be frozen and ready for production. This paper describes the results of a Six-sigma Green Belt Project conducted during EcoSport 4WD development. This Six-sigma methodology was used to optimize the Mechanical Package approval process in order to achieve a robust analytical sign-off, reducing timing and penalty cost risks.