For vehicle manufacturers quality is a strategically important differentiator.
And central to the mission of delivering good quality vehicles to the marketplace is the vehicle assembly plant’s “quality hold” process, where vehicles are inspected at the end of the line, and those in need of repair or additional parts to reach completion are separated out and then driven to a specialist team of on-site technicians for the necessary work.
Mostly, the quality hold process works well: vehicles arrive in the hold “pool” at roughly the rate at which technicians repair them, and the number of vehicles on hold remains fairly constant.
But new model introductions can strain this delicate balance. New models typically require more adjustments, and often, the changes needed are different from those associated with previous models, which leads to a spike in workload for repair technicians. To compound this problem, at the same time that technicians have more work than normal, their actual utilization can decline as yard management struggles to find the right vehicles to keep them busy: there are simply too many vehicles to search through and track.
But when yards can access vehicle visibility in real time, it can dramatically change the mean time to repair, make new model launches more efficient, and help accelerate the flow of vehicles to the market.
When paper systems can’t cope
Historically, yards have used a spreadsheet or pen-and-paper system to keep track of vehicle locations, but with an influx of vehicles during a new model launch, these systems quickly get swamped.
“When I have 50 vehicles on quality hold, the process is manageable: paper systems and spreadsheets can handle it,” a yard manager told us recently. “But start putting zeros after that 50—500 vehicles, or 5,000 vehicles, say—and it gets challenging. You’re struggling to find space, you’re struggling to find the right vehicles, the paper systems can’t cope, and the mean-time-to-repair metrics plummet.”
A real time location system transforms vehicle visibility
A real-time location system, powered by GPS-enabled tags placed in each vehicle, can transform the situation. The tags broadcast their exact location — to within a parking space or two — making it easy to find vehicles wherever they are. Tags can even light up, flashing to indicate the correct vehicle, creating even more efficiency during night-time operations or inclement weather.
Yard management no longer has to worry about putting vehicles in neatly ordered contiguous blocks: they can go anywhere because they can easily be found when required.
The technology handles the chore of keeping track of where the quality-holds vehicles are. There’s no need to update spreadsheets as vehicles are moved from place to place, or update pen-and-paper logs. You get 24/7 visibility into where each vehicle is, where it moved to, and who moved it.
Not only do the right vehicles reach the quality technicians quickly, efficiently, and at the right time, but vehicles don’t get lost.
Because when vehicles can’t be found, it’s a costly and time-consuming process for yard managers to find them. “Yard audits,” in which teams fan out over the entire yard, recording which vehicles are in which parking slots, are the usual fix-of-choice. But it’s an expensive and time-consuming fix that means those “lost” vehicles aren’t on their way to dealer lots.
Add it all up, and the productivity improvements — and cost savings — from an investment in real-time location intelligence can be substantial.
Shrinking model lifecycles require better location intelligence
The need for real-time location intelligence in the quality-hold process has never been more pressing. It’s no secret that in recent years, vehicle manufacturers have seen a significant reduction in the profit margin earned from each vehicle. In response, the auto industry is increasing its focus on yet another competitive battleground: innovation.
New model introductions, once a relative rarity, are becoming business-as-usual. Traditionally five to eight years long, automotive model lifecycles have been steadily shrinking. Some studies have even pointed to new model updates coming through every year, right across manufacturers’ entire model ranges.
But with the quality hold process — and its associated performance metrics — already under pressure from the existing level of new model introductions, these shorter lifecycles add even more pressure.
More new model introductions mean more learning curves for plants’ manufacturing engineers and assembly lines to go through, more new and unfamiliar parts for assembly lines to install and technicians to repair, and more frequent periods during which yard managements must struggle with ballooning numbers of vehicles going through the quality hold process, putting technicians and yard personnel alike under increased pressure.
A real time location system eases that pressure, boosting efficiencies in yard operations, maximizing the utilization of quality technicians, improving mean-time-to-repair metrics, and expediting the flow of high-quality vehicles to the marketplace. Beyond having an understanding of where vehicles are at all times, yard management has access to data and KPIs that can drive even more efficiencies. Real-time location data can offer insight into:
- Average move time per vehicle per driver
- Wait time between moves
- Accuracy in moving the correct vehicle to the correct location
- Damage reporting by vehicle by driver
- Driver utilization, and more
As automakers race to launch new models faster, quality hold processes are being overwhelmed. Traditional tracking fails with ballooning volumes and new model launches. With real-time location intelligence, the right vehicles get to technicians faster and more accurately, technician utilization soars, and the accompanying data creates yard efficiencies that extend well beyond the quality hold process. Ready to learn more about transforming your finished vehicle logistics operational performance? Download our guide to improving FVL efficiency and profitability.
