OEMs and suppliers need real-time visibility into their global manufacturing operations to better implement and control quality processes within and across plants in order to optimize lean production. Managing regulatory compliance and minimizing product recall by improving product quality, all while balancing profitability, are key factors that drive today’s adaptive manufacturing.
Hence, Automotive Tier 1 Suppliers are relying on Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) solutions that offer real-time visibility and control to across all manufacturing operations and the supply chain to improve manufacturing performance, enforce business processes and improve quality.
Some of the critical challenges faced by the Supplier community are as follows:
Challenges when Product Complexity Grows:
Automakers have embraced the concept of global vehicle platforms that support multiple “top hats” as a method by which helps to achieve both economy of scale and market-demand responsiveness. For Automotive Suppliers, this requires manufacturing operations precisely synchronized to the pull signals of multiple OEM customers yet flexible enough to support sudden production shifts dictated by market changes or unplanned events. This complexity must then be balanced to provide maximum capacity utilization at both the plant and enterprise manufacturing levels in support of profitability.
The MOM helps address these complex challenges by providing a comprehensive platform-like solution that uniquely enables the necessary visibility and control to achieve manufacturing excellence. MOM solutions ensures improvement in global synchronization of production and materials, increase throughput and capacity utilization, maximize First-Time Quality rates and accelerate time to global market. Such MOM solution, when deployed with an accelerated approach enable Tier 1 Supplier manufacturers to replace disparate, silo-based systems with a unified approach to improve operational efficiency over global manufacturing and supply chain operations.

Flexible Manufacturing to Maximize Capital Investment:

Automakers and suppliers have made significant investments in flexible tooling systems to support the tightening balance of capacity and responsiveness against profitability. Yet few have truly leveraged this investment to synchronize and enforce flexible manufacturing processes across all production work areas and functions.

MOM solutions for Automotive Tier 1 Suppliers helps to graphically define and manage manufacturing business process flows from the supply chain through finished goods distribution, providing process flexibility to truly leverage capital investments. These help to:

• Define and update cross-functional manufacturing processes that span work cells to insure process integrity while reducing set-up time for model/product changeover
• Drive performance consistency, higher production throughput and greater product quality through high-level business-process synchronization
• Improve real-time visibility and control of individual work cells, machines and tooling, operator interactions and material supplies for heightened manufacturing operational excellence

Embed Quality in Manufacturing DNA

Competitive differentiation cannot be achieved by simply focusing on planning. The ability to win long-term production supply contracts will be driven by how well suppliers execute quality plans within manufacturing operations.

MOM solutions provides solutions that operates like a technology platform. This capability helps in embedding best practice quality and manufacturing processes that integrate process, people, materials and machines into a seamless, real-time operations flow.

• Interlocking traceability and genealogy incorporates processes, materials, equipment, tools, labor and supplier attributes to provide comprehensive root cause analysis and reduce warranty claim exposure.
• Comprehensive containment management capabilities can isolate a “spill” via any combination of tracked manufacturing characteristic, helping to contain costs and minimize exposure to out-of-spec materials.
• Remain agile while maintaining compliance with industry and customer product quality guidelines, including ISO TS-16949, APQP (Advanced Product Quality Planning) and PPAP (Production Part Approval Process)

Precision Manufacturing Improves Margins

MOM Solutions for Suppliers are used worldwide by automotive manufacturers to manage today’s complex product demands while maintaining the highest quality standards.

• Synchronize customer “pull” signals including Just In Time (JIT) and sequenced JIT, material allocation / replenishment, sub- and final assembly operations, container management and finished goods distribution to drive cost reductions, higher capacity and profits.
• In-line error-proofing and monitoring of SPC trending and control limits eliminates scrap and re-work while maximizing throughput.
• Drive lower inventory costs, reduced PPM defect penalties, and higher performance scorecards with rapid, global deployment of a MOM Lean manufacturing solution

MOM applications for global manufacturing provide a platform-like solution. This approach has been leveraged by many Global Suppliers to leverage their own best-in-class processes to support corporate expansion strategies in fast-growth emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). This strategy is helping them reduce time-to-globalmarket and time-to-volume in markets that require joint-venture operations while increasing both initial and full-production product quality when working with new and unskilled labor forces. This is achieved with proven best practice processes enhanced by any level of native language GUI-based Work Instructions.

Putting It All Together

As product complexity increases and new market opportunities grow, winning as an Automotive Supplier requires partnering with a proven company that can leverage industry best practices while supporting process flexibility.

Dassault Systemes’s DELMIA Apriso Tier 1 Supplier industry MOM solutions deliver visibility and control across all manufacturing operations and the supply chain, enabling multiple improvement strategies and process improvements from a single solution.

• Improve Manufacturing Efficiency
• Deliver Quality Across the Enterprise
• Increase Responsiveness

Apriso solutions offer the widest possible footprint for management visibility – across entire enterprise. Performance is optimized across all aspects of the extended value chain, including people, materials, machines and processes – and those of suppliers. By transferring real-time data, signals, alerts, KPIs or business intelligence from any network location to any other location around the world, Apriso solutions empower global manufacturers operating in the Automotive Tier 1 Supplier industry to respond quickly to strategy shifts, changing market conditions and unexpected events.