So how does automotive manufacturing work? In this article we’ll give you a peak inside the automotive industry.
So the typical flow for automotive manufacturing starts at the necessity for part/parts.
What a good majority of people are unaware of is the fact that most companies that are household names known to most people is that they rarely manufacture everything in house.
When we say that we manufacture parts, it’s much different than a company that is a well known brand saying that they manufacture whatever it is they sell to their end customers.
When we say that we manufacture parts we mean that we take raw material and add value to it through metal stamping and metal fabrication to meet our customers exact specifications. Essentially, our parts are used by other companies to produce their products.
So the typical flow from something that resides in AutoCAD or pencil and paper to a part that is usable starts with an RFQ (request for a quote) to a company that has the capabilities to turn your idea into reality like us.
Once we receive your RFQ we conduct a meeting with all of our in house engineers, purchasers, sales and quality team, to go over the drawings and any other information that may be pertinent to the project.
Everyone provides input and any necessary follow up questions that may be required to gather any other information that is needed to come to a conclusion on whether or not the project is doable.
Once all required information is gathered, and the project is viewed as doable. A price per part is negotiated between us and the client, and we then order the required material.
Depending on what information is provided with the initial RFQ this process can vary in length. However, there are some things that are required to be able to provide a quote, and these are:
- Material Type
- Quantity
- Tolerance Scheme
- Drawings
These are the bare necessities for us to provide our clients with a quote. Some companies may require less and some may require more. However, since we aim to provide the most accurate quotes to our customers as possible we do require these.
Our tooling engineering reaches out to various tooling houses (we have some located in the United States, and China) depending on the technical challenges that are required.
Then our in house quality team works to get all required paperwork together to be ready for the SOP (start of production).
Once the SOP is reached our clients parts are already being manufactured so that we can send out the parts as soon as the client needs them.
Since we are a very low level manufacturer once client receives the parts they usually need to do additional assembly on their end. So that’s why we run so efficiently. Because if we do not deliver on time then it has the possibility to effect our customers greatly.
That’s why we embrace the Toyota Production System, and Lean manufacturing method.
This is a very small and very broad snapshot of what it takes to create a part in the automotive manufacturing realm. There are an unlimited amount of moving parts that are really required to make everything happen, but this is just a brief overview of what it takes.
Of course, it takes a great team working together like a well oiled machine (manufacturing joke) to make all the pieces come together.
That’s a glimpse on what it takes to go from idea/concept to manufacturing.