Magna Powertrain’s roots run deep in automotive manufacturing. Since 1957, the company has worked with the world’s most successful auto manufacturers, producing everything from seats to powertrains to even building entire vehicles.
Working in close collaboration with their partners, Magna Powertrain’s (Magna) prototype division is involved in the design and manufacturing of prototype transmissions for trials and testing as part of new vehicle designs and existing model updates. In order to deliver high quality prototypes, the Magna team must ensure that the precise components they use in manufacturing processes are traceable – from raw materials to assemblies to finished goods.
The prototype department has always taken this responsibility quite seriously, investing the time and resources necessary to track the manufacturing process for each build, but it was laborious, time-consuming and based on manually updated systems.
Manufacturing Traceability Requires a Powerful Inventory Tracking
Magna wanted a solution that could be rapidly implemented; could automate their existing manual processes; and would provide the reporting and data they needed to trace any issues found during any phase of manufacturing, from testing individual components to the entire transmission assembly, including pinpointing issues found at their automotive partner plants back to the Magna manufacturing facility for research and resolution.
BarcodeShack consulted with the Magna team and determined that Wasp Barcode Technologies’ (Wasp) solution would fulfill their inventory tracking requirements, along with BarcodeShack’s professional services to ensure accurate implementation, database configuration, data imports and staff training.
The BarcodeShack team also guided hardware selection, recommending a mobile computer/scanner from Wasp and a tablet with an integrated barcode scanner from Unitech specified as the tools to get the job done on a daily basis during manufacturing and assembly.
Improved Efficiency, Accuracy and Visibility for Transmission Prototype Manufacturing Processes
Magna Powertrain now has an effective cloud-based, barcode-based inventory management solution that ensures improved accuracy, efficiency and visibility into the manufacture of their high-quality prototype transmissions. The solution effectively manages raw materials, assemblies (bills-of-materials) and finished goods. Magna is able to automatically keep track of those who are responsible for each transaction within the manufacturing process, and trace back through the entire production chain for root cause analysis and product improvements.