Automotive

The automotive industry was severely hit by the 2008 crisis, leading to the closure of production plants and hiring freezes. After a short period of growth, the industry is again facing uncertainty due to a significant decrease in diesel vehicle sales as a result of changes in public policies, the difficult shift towards electric vehicles and the global trend towards car sharing. These evolutions tend to decrease anticipated sales but bring new business opportunities.

Challenges in the automotive industry

Facing these events is challenging for car manufacturers and auto parts suppliers. Recent initiatives, such as the acquisition of Kapten by Daimler and Michelin’s strategy of investing in mobility services, especially in digital technologies, demonstrate the massive shift that is coming in the future.

The impact on operations is significant. A complete change of the industrial tools, the need for agility in a traditionally cost-focused industry where fast adaptation of production capacities or mix is a huge problem and the management of spare parts in a circular economy including electric batteries have all changed the operational landscape.

How we can help with the automotive industry

We support manufacturers and suppliers in the necessary transformation of their operations with a particular focus on agility, from identifying issues to the implementation of performance levers:

Procurement and upstream optimisation

Sourcing strategy
Supplier collaboration and performance
Reduction of procurement delays
Stock optimization
Procurement performance

Industrial strategy

Optimizing footprint
Allocation of products to sites based on demand uncertainty
Vehicle sales forecasts and S&OP
Industrial performance and lean management
Maintenance of industrial infrastructures

Supply chain planning

Demand management
Multisite planning
Capacity planning and optimization of the vehicle film
Scheduling optimization
Management of synchronized flow
Just-in-time flow

Optimizing the distribution of vehicles

Real-time flow follow-up thanks to IoT solutions

Optimization of the spare parts supply chain

Service strategy and logistics strategy
Optimization of assortments in the network and sales forecasts with machine learning technologies
Supply chain planning
Inventory reduction
Logistics process efficiency for transportation and warehousing services

Our approach

We apply a combination of technical expertise, operational experience and business knowledge to help our clients solve automotive issues and deliver lasting results. Our personal and pragmatic approach, with challenge where needed, ensures buy-in at all levels of our clients’ businesses and a successful outcome. We have worked with a wide range of organizations in the automotive industry including Michelin, PSA Groupe, Europcar, Autodistribution, Renault, Emil Frey, The Commercial Vehicle Business Unit (CVBU) of Tata Motors, Manheim Global Trader, Genuine Parts Company (GPC) and Avvashyacci. Learn more about us here.

Automotive case studies

Spare parts distribution centre design

automotive

Spare parts distribution centre design

The Commercial Vehicle Business Unit (CVBU) of Tata Motors aims to double the current revenue of US$0.5 billion to US$1 billion over the next three to five years. The CVBU currently has four Distribution Centres across India. The Pune DC was identified as the first modernisation project to build a state of the art DC.

The issue was that space was running out in the current DC, there were mostly manual processes with mechanization, labour intensive packing processes and a major issue with inventory accuracy.

Our role

Design a DC to handle year 2020 volumes
Design a solution to incorporate the volumes from the slow moving parts DC
Identify the maximum volumes that the DC can support
Design a method to collect the item cubes for the purpose of calculating the storage cube (in the absence of cube data)
Evaluate appropriate automation for various processes

Results

Developed a futuristic design along with detailed specs for MHEs, capex and opex requirements, electrical, lighting and CCTV layout
Design allowed use of existing storage system
Designed a batch-pick and sort (by Put-To-light) for processing of small item orders
Developed training materials and conducted “train the trainer” sessions

Increasing effectiveness in third party operations

Supply chain network

Finance transformation

Estimating labour for line feeding

tractor manufacturing

Estimating labour for line feeding

The company is a joint venture between an Indian company and a Swedish multinational commercial vehicle manufacturer. It has been operating since 2008. The company’s vision is to be recognized as the industry leader driving modernization in commercial transportation in India and the developing world.

Argon & Co supported the creation of a 3PL contract for managing the line feeding operations at one of India’s largest tractor manufacturers.

Our role

Estimate manpower required for various line feeding activities across the 200,000 square metre plant of India’s third largest tractor manufacturer
Isolate potential problems, changes in methods and revalidating defined scope of work for the 3PL proposal
Mark out a detailed flow of material within the different buildings and across buildings in the plant
Identify potential improvements in storage, systems and processes based on time studies

Results

Using time studies and derived process rates, provided a model to predict manpower needed in the plant based on different production scenarios
Better methods that could potentially reduce 15-19% of time spent were identified
Changes suggested in storage methods could result in savings of 20-25% of the storage area
Identified and suggested additional simple system features to help improve operations