MES Implementation for an Automotive Parts Manufacturer

The client is a tier-2 automotive parts supplier operating six machining and assembly lines across two plants, producing about 8 million parts a year. Before the project, ERP stopped at work order release: the shop floor ran on paper routing cards and Excel reporting, schedule changes never reached the stations in time, and quality traceability meant digging through paper records.

Scope

1. Routing modelling: routing bound to each part number, with machining, cleaning, assembly, inspection and packing reported as five separate operations, aligned with ERP work orders.

2. Planning and scheduling: ERP work orders flow into MES and are split into operation tasks by machine capacity and shift; insertions and changes are pushed to station terminals in real time.

3. Shop-floor execution: barcode and RFID binding, scan-based reporting, first-article inspection, and online handling of rejects and rework.

4. Quality traceability: forward to the customer batch, backward to raw material lot, machine, operator and process parameters.

5. Machine connectivity: 42 key machines connected, capturing status, cycle time and downtime reasons.

6. Andon and dashboards: line-level, team-level and plant-level views linked together.

Results

WIP inventory down 32%, schedule attainment up from 76% to 94%, traceability time cut from about two hours to three minutes, and daily reporting closed on the same day.

Our role

Requirement definition, routing modelling, system implementation and go-live coaching, plus team training and data verification during the parallel run. The project ran 14 weeks, including two weeks of parallel operation.