Cell Supply Chain Management with Approval and Surveillance Program

Abstract

Some intended or unintended modifications can be in the cell models after the models were approved or certified. Those changes should be verified through the Engineering Change Order process of each approval or certification process; otherwise, those unverified modifications can lead the cell models into trouble. In addition, some failure analysis reports blamed unknown and unproven modifications in the cell models as the root causes of the safety concerns and the field incidents. Therefore, we developed a validation process named a cell supply chain management with an approval and surveillance program to eliminate or prevent the root causes of the LiB cell safety concern and battery field incidents caused by unknown and unproven changes on the approved cell models. Each verification process (approval and surveillance program) generates a technical database library of all the analysis and test results of each step of a cell model as its fingerprint. The database enables the process can identify and prevent any unknown and unproven changes in the cell model through its life span. The verification process is analyzing listed test, inspection, and analysis items as a fingerprint of each cell model. This paper explains and proposes each verification process's concept and analysis method and shows a validation process of a cell model by comparing the analysis results of each step. We found this program's designed concept is beneficial to prevent the root causes of LiB cell safety concerns and battery field incidents caused by unknown and unproven changes on the approved cell models.