The Part Submission Warrant is the cover sheet of the Production Part Approval Process (PPAP), and sums up the whole PPAP package, containing major information about the approval.
Based on the AIAG PPAP manual, it is the 18th point of the PPAP, and such as the PPAP manual, the form of the PWS has been developed by AIAG, and the big American car manufacturers (OEMs).
PWS form
The PWS collects detailed information about the PPAP package on one form, briefly the following:
- Part name and part number.
- Drawing number / engineering change levels.
- Date of the submission.
- Weight of the part.
- Details of supplier and customer (company, address, etc.).
- Information about base materials (e.g. IMDS numbers, substances).
- Reason for submission.
- Requested submission level (level 1 – level 5).
- Submission results (e.g. dimensional measurements, function test, etc.).
- The declaration of the production rate.
- Signature and contact data of the supplier.
- Disposition of the customer (approval, rejection, or temporary release).
- Signature and contact data of the customer.
Suggestion
PSW is always a mandatory element of the submission, independent of submission level (even the less strict submission level 1 requests PSW). The approval is only valid with the customer signature in the last section of the PSW.
Filling the PSW correctly is a must, as it supplies crucial information about the part, which is the basis of the customer release. Many suppliers make mistakes regarding the following details:
- Wrong drawing number, or version.
- The weight of the part is only estimated.
- The reason of submission is chosen incorrectly (for ex.: mixing change of tooling and engineering change).
- Inaccurate production rate, which is not valid (for ex.: the supplier cannot produce with the defined rate).
Instead of simply creating PPAP in MS Excel or MS Word, there is a better solution, to use 3rd party systems, which also provide the traceability of PPAP documents, including the submitted PSW sheets.
Conclusion
- PWS stands for Part Submission Warrant.
- The PWS is the cover sheet of the PPAP, and summarizes the detailed information about the PPAP package.
- The warrant form – such as the PPAP manual – create by AIAG (and the big American carmakers).
- Irrespectively of the submission level, PSW is always an element of the PPAP, which must be submitted (even in the case of submission level 1)