Digital PPAP as Constitutive Communication Practice: Constructing Quality and Customer Alignment in the Automotive Semiconductor Industry
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37535/105005220268Keywords:
digital ppap, communication in organizations, quality legitimacy, customer alignment, automotive semiconductorAbstract
The automobile semiconductor business has a high-quality and traceability requirement whereby the approvals of the customer are based not merely on technical compliance but on the credibility of the processes employed to show preparedness. Manufacturers most commonly use the Production Part Approval Process (PPAP) as a technical compliance process to demonstrate their manufacturing capability. In this paper, it is suggested that digital PPAP can be considered a broader concept of communicative infrastructure in which organizational coordination, approval authority, quality legitimacy, and alignment with customers are established. The article is based on Communication as Constitutive of Organization, which explains why strategic business communication, customer relationship management, and the communication practices involved in a self-service digital PPAP environment, where internal organizing and external customer-facing outputs are created, inform the research. This study conducted a qualitative single-case study using the quality management of Infineon Technologies AG, Germany. Semi-structured interviews with five individuals in key workflow roles, along with organizational documents, workflow logic, and non-confidential system artifacts, triangulated the data. The findings indicate that the continuity of digital workflow continues to depend on communicative work to help clarify the validity of documents, remove ambiguity in ownership, and re-link fragmented records between systems. Approval is also a performative action that creates organizational readiness, rather than technical readiness. It takes constitutive communication for digital quality management.
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