Case studies / Automotive and Auto Components
Case studyScheduling by line and variant across four component plants
An auto components maker replaced a shared planning spreadsheet with line-and-variant scheduling across four plants, cutting changeovers and exposing variants that lost money.
Overview
A privately owned Tier 1 and Tier 2 supplier of stamped, machined and welded components to passenger-car and two-wheeler manufacturers, with four plants in western and southern India.
Scale. Around 2,600 active part variants produced on 70 shared lines, supplying eleven vehicle makers on daily and weekly call-offs, delivered as a phased, multi-location programme.
The challenge
Production at all four plants was planned on a shared spreadsheet that had grown over a decade. Each plant had its own tabs, colour codes and unwritten rules. Planners juggled customer call-offs, line capacity and tool availability by hand, and when a vehicle maker changed its schedule at short notice, the spreadsheet was rebuilt overnight.
Changeovers were frequent and long. With many variants running on shared lines, planners often switched tools several times a shift to chase urgent orders, and each switch cost press time. Tooling and die wear was tracked differently in each plant, so dies sometimes failed mid-run and maintenance learned about it from the line.
Rejections and rework were absorbed into overheads rather than charged to the parts that caused them. The finance team suspected some variants were unprofitable but could not prove which. There was no single view of capacity, quality or cost across the group, and the managing director reviewed performance from four differently built reports.
The solution
Schedules are now built by line and variant family. Customer call-offs arrive by EDI and are turned into a weekly plan that groups variants sharing tools and set-ups, so lines change over less often and planners can see the cost of breaking a sequence to chase an urgent order.
Tooling life is tracked by stroke count from machine data, with dies flagged for maintenance before they reach their limit. Downtime is recorded with a common set of reasons in every plant. Rejections and rework are booked against the specific part and line, so their cost lands where it belongs rather than disappearing into overheads.
All four plants share one set of master data for parts, tools, routings and customers. Group reporting draws on the same figures, giving leadership a monthly view of changeovers, dispatch, quality and margin by variant and customer.
The engagement
- Ten months
- Eight specialists, with planners and supervisors from each plant
- Process mapping, common planning and tooling processes, rework and scrap capture, shared master data, integration with plant systems and customer EDI, pilot and phased rollout.
Integrations
- Plant systems and machine data
- Supplier and customer EDI
- Engineering and product data
- Group reporting
How we delivered it
- 01
Map the work with the people who do it
Seven weeks
We spent time on the shop floor in all four plants with planners, line supervisors, toolroom staff and quality inspectors, mapping how schedules were really built and changed. Together with plant heads we agreed the scope: scheduling, tooling life, rework capture and shared master data.
- 02
Design common processes and build integrations
Twelve weeks
Planners from each plant designed one scheduling process, grouping variants into families that share tools and set-ups. We built common rules for recording die strokes and downtime, and for booking rework and scrap against the part that caused it. Integrations connected plant machine data, customer EDI call-offs and engineering data.
- 03
Pilot in one plant
Eight weeks
The pilot ran in the largest plant. Early weeks exposed gaps in tool master data and some unrealistic cycle times, which were corrected with supervisors. Planners and line leads were trained on real schedules rather than examples.
- 04
Roll out in waves and track results
Fifteen weeks
The remaining three plants followed in two waves. Each month the leadership team reviewed changeover time, dispatch performance, scrap and cost by variant from one shared report.
Results
- Changeovers fell and on-time dispatch improved
- Teams worked from the same data across all four plants
- Loss-making variants identified and re-priced
- Leadership reviewed results monthly from one report
Changeovers fell substantially once schedules were built around variant families, and on-time dispatch against customer call-offs rose to the mid-nineties. Late-delivery penalties from two vehicle makers, a regular irritation, have largely stopped.
Teams in all four plants work from the same data. A planner in one plant can see spare capacity in another and move work, which happened several times during a customer's model launch.
When rework and tooling costs were finally charged to the right parts, the finance team found that a handful of variants lost money on every unit. The commercial team used that evidence to re-price them at the next annual negotiation. Leadership now reviews results monthly from a single report.
Our planners built this themselves, so they trust it. And for the first time we know which parts actually make us money.
What made the difference
The client discovered that a few variants lost money once rework and tooling were counted, and re-priced them. Involving the people who do the work early made adoption easier: planners designed the process they now use.
