AUTOKINITON

The Challenge:

GROWTH AND EVOLVING CUSTOMER MANDATES DRIVE NEED FOR QUALITY STANDARDIZATION AT AUTOKINITON

Autokiniton is synonymous with quality in the automotive industry. Customers depend on the leading body-in-white and vehicle-frame supplier to consistently deliver high-quality products that meet stringent regulatory requirements, and Autokiniton has been meeting and exceeding that expectation for decades with the support of QAD EQMS and alignment with automotive standards such as QS9000, ISO 9001, TS-16949 and IATF 16949. 

The process for doing so, however, became more complex over time as Autokiniton grew through mergers and acquisitions, customer demands evolved and regulations continued to change. As an early adopter of automotive quality standards, Autokiniton recognized that Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) presented an opportunity to not only drive standardization across multiple divisions, but also increase efficiency with foundation FMEAs and ensure compliance with Customer Specific Requirements (CSR) from Ford and other major automotive manufacturers. 

“FMEAs are important in the automotive industry because the quality tolerances within the automotive industry are so high,” explained Andrew Amstutz, Vice President of IT at Autokiniton. “We measure quality defects in parts per million. Controls are extremely important to make sure that there are no defects in any of the products we produce.”

“Customers are starting to recognize that you need to have a system in place to tie the formulas with the control plans, and to have that link back to your foundational knowledge that you have on production processes,” continued Amstutz. “Customers came out and said, ‘Hey, this is no longer an option. It’s a requirement.’” 

In addition to evolving standards, Autokiniton’s acquisition of L&W Engineering in 2018 and Tower International in 2019 made standardization more important than ever. Mergers and acquisitions aligned with Autokiniton’s growth strategy but each deal brought new manufacturing facilities, each with their own processes for failure modes and controls, into the fold.

To address these challenges and build quality from the beginning, Autokiniton adopted a strategy to standardize its processes, unlock efficiencies and ensure compliance with customer mandates, all while retaining its reputation as a global leader in quality for automotive products.

The Solution:

AUTOKINITON LEVERAGES QAD EQMS TO STANDARDIZE PROCESSES AND DRIVE ENTERPRISE-WIDE ALIGNMENT

Autokiniton had been using QAD EQMS for years; since L&W Engineering and Tower International were EQMS customers pre-acquisition, leaders recognized a powerful opportunity to take a standardized approach to EQMS implementation with a focus on creating and managing foundational FMEAS and control plans. 

Autokiniton used QAD EQMS to develop standardized process libraries for both FMEAs and control plans, enabling the company to achieve enterprise-wide process alignment and support operational resilience.

“Library standards give us a definition across the organization,” explained Amstutz. “For example, if we define how to control a spot welding process, we can use that definition across the organization in a very standard way, regardless of what product we’re producing.”

The solution’s app extensions, meanwhile, gave Autokinition the flexibility it needed to tailor workflows without compromising software updates. “For example, we added a layer of approval for both the engineering manager and the quality manager at the manufacturing plant to approve a manufacturing document put forth by corporate,” said Amstutz. “This ensures our processes are tailored to our needs without modifying the software itself.”

The Benefits:

AUTOKINITON RAISES THE BAR ON QUALITY MANAGEMENT AND CUSTOMER COMPLIANCE WITH QAD EQMS STANDARDIZATION

By taking standardization to new heights with QAD EQMS, Autokinition gained the ability to align its operations with customer expectations.  “EQMS has given us the opportunity to bring all that expertise together as a combined organization and define a very comprehensive standard,” Amstutz stated.

“Autokiniton had the vision of creating standardized process libraries for FMEA and control plans, and this directly aligned with the requirements that our customers were putting forth to say that you have to have family templates and foundational FMEA in place to manage your environment.”

“Having the foundational FMEAs built with EQMS allows us to take the process libraries into our families in a very quick way so that we can really focus on those things that are product-specific,” continued Amstutz. “And we know that we have all the knowledge coming in from the process libraries.”

Automotive manufacturing is inherently complex, and even more so amid shifting market dynamics and regulations. Autokinition’s structured approach to standardization and FMEAs with QAD EQMS has streamlined processes and reduced the risk of costly quality issues. “If you do the same thing over and over and over again, eventually you miss something. Foundational libraries ensure that the knowledge we have for all our processes is utilized on every single product we implement,” Amstutz explained.

Having the foundational FMEAs automatically brings in all the failure mode information that the organization collectively knows. This ensures that critical insights are not forgotten and allows the team to focus on identifying unique risks for specific parts. By embedding this knowledge into the foundational process libraries, Autokiniton has achieved a balance between leveraging existing expertise and addressing product-specific challenges.

This approach also supports the retention of corporate process knowledge, which is particularly crucial as employees retire or leave the organization. Formalizing and preserving this knowledge ensures it is accessible for future generations within the company.

Amstutz also attributes Autokiniton’s cohesive and efficient operational framework to the integration between QAD EQMS and QAD ERP. “The system of record for the item master is QAD ERP and that integrates with QAD EQMS, the system of record for customers and suppliers.”

Plus, Autokiniton has found a partner it can rely on with the QAD Product Management team. The company continues to work with the team to optimize the solution and support a quality culture within Autokiniton. “We’ve had a close relationship with the QAD EQMS product development team for many years,” stated Amstutz. “That’s really helped us define where the product needs to grow with us and where we’re trying to do things that are maybe not based on the product design. It’s also helped steer our processes in areas specific to our business needs.”

“The QAD EQMS Product Management team even brought Autokinition and a few other customers together to prioritize new features,” explained Amstutz. The working group aligned on the need for tree view functionality for FMEAs, which allows users to drill down into different layers of failure modes. 

“The ability to understand that within a tree view and how things are related together really helps our team understand how to not only use the software, but also the data it provides. It's relevant and useful for people across the organization.”

The future is bright for Autokiniton with QAD’s support. The company relies on QAD EQMS to stay ahead of the curve, which is easy with QAD’s deep expertise in the automotive industry.

“I’m very confident that QAD EQMS is going to help us meet future industry standards,” concluded Amstutz.