Efficient Automotive Operations with Manufacturing Control Towers

In today’s dynamic Transportation & Mobility landscape, the pressure is on to innovate and provide new experiences for customers. Automotive companies are racing to meet evolving demands, moving from mass production to mass customization and introducing electric, connected and autonomous vehicles to market — all while keeping costs low, embracing sustainability mandates and ensuring operational efficiency. Any delayed information about disruptions and visibility on the shop floor could lead to inefficiencies and increased costs.

Success, and establishing a lasting competitive advantage in new ways, now relies on the ability to modernize manufacturing and operational systems to drive swift and informed decision-making. This is where the Manufacturing Control Tower (MCT) steps in—a digital solution that provides real-time visibility, monitoring and control over an organization’s manufacturing operations.

Here, we shed light on the competitive capabilities of an MCT and the value it can generate for efficient automotive operations by addressing the following questions.

What is a Manufacturing Control Tower (MCT)?

Many of the problems in Transportation & Mobility manufacturing stem from a lack of visibility and control over operations. This can further compound disruptions and make solving daily operational challenges and the need for aligning execution with plans more complex.

MCT resolves this by providing a central overview of everything that happens in manufacturing and operations—in the past, present and what is planned for the future. As a cross-functional, central link between plants, warehouses, distribution and customers, it establishes stronger links between all stakeholders to facilitate timely and more effective communication by providing real-time data and metrics in manufacturing and operations. Specifically, manufacturing control tower empowers users with visibility and control at three levels of manufacturing operations:

• Machines and operators
• Plants, production lines and customer orders
• Global across all locations, processes and production assets

What Value does MCT create in Transportation & Mobility Manufacturing?

By establishing end-to-end visibility and control, MCT enables efficient automotive operations in terms of the following benefits:

• Decreased mean time to acknowledge (MTTA) due to increased near real-time visibility
• Reduced costs from poor quality through better root cause analysis
• Operational cost savings from improved visibility of field operations
• Minimized disruptions with real-time visibility into the impact of disturbances across all areas
• Improved throughput from earlier identification of issues and disruptions

While valuable, the manufacturing control tower alone isn’t a silver bullet. To unlock enhanced benefits, Transportation & Mobility companies need to  consider implementing it with a centralized platform that drives efficient planning, unmatched optimization and real-time heightened reactivity. DELMIA integrates perfectly with the MCT, offering solutions for enhanced operational efficiency, improved equipment performance, streamlined processes and cost reduction.

How DELMIA can unlock Efficient Automotive Operations with MCT

Powered by the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, DELMIA leverages the manufacturing control tower to improve operational visibility and control through a comprehensive experience. This is achieved through a model-based, data-driven approach that seamlessly integrates the virtual and real worlds of manufacturing and operations. The solution’s 4D virtual experience of manufacturing enables root cause analysis by detecting and triggering corrective actions. Most importantly, it helps drive improved decision-making by using external information to enrich the 3D context in the virtual model, supporting Transportation & Mobility manufacturers in these domains:

• Supervising operations with asset and disruption monitoring
• Dispatching decisions for maintenance, safety, quality and planning
• Identifying and investigating issues through replaying events in a 3D virtual world

The collaborative synergy between MCT and DELMIA facilitates a continuous cycle of improvement, empowering companies to consistently calibrate and compare planned versus actual data. Manufacturers can more readily realize company-wide KPIs through the infusion of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) data, real-time sensor updates and precise geolocations, which form the backbone of end-to-end visibility and control.

Equipped with these robust capabilities, Transportation & Mobility companies can drive more sustainable innovation and continuous improvement in manufacturing efficiency for increased benefits and profitability while being resilient and responsive to disruption.

For more information about the value and capabilities of manufacturing control tower in Transportation & Mobility and how DELMIA can accelerate your organization’s digital transformation, download our white paper, Take Control and Modernize Transportation & Mobility Manufacturing. 

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