Connected production A Smart Factory for Powertrains

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The automotive industry and its suppliers are part of a highly competitive market. To succeed in this market, increasingly efficient processes and reliable quality are essential. Magna Powertrain aims to achieve both through a high degree of digitalization.

Magna is one of the world's largest automotive suppliers. The company employs 179,000 people in 28 countries. Globally, it maintains 343 production sites and 105 product development, engineering, and sales centers. The company's history began over 65 years ago, and today Magna claims to be a 42-billion-dollar business. It has grown over the past 20 years both organizationally and through significant acquisitions. In this process, the business with powertrains, one of the many fields of activity of the automotive supplier, has also increased.

These powertrains for combustion engines as well as partial and fully electric vehicles are manufactured, among other locations, at the Neuenstein site in Baden-Württemberg. Customers range from Audi to Ferrari and Xiaopeng. In addition to the automotive industry's current major challenge of moving away from fossil fuels, Magna Powertrain, like many other industrial companies, is also faced with the necessity of digital transformation. This transformation importantly includes the integration of processes, something the transmission specialist is well-acquainted with. Thus, they approached it with Swabian pragmatism.

Real problems lead to real solutions

This decision was based on real challenges, one of which was the high scrap rate of so-called build-to-print components. Automotive suppliers understand these as parts manufactured based on precise specifications and drawings provided by a customer. This approach ensures that the manufactured components fit precisely into complex systems such as automobile engines or car bodies.

The reason for the scrap was identified as the well-known but undesirable triad in automobile production abbreviated as NVH, which stands for noise, vibration, and harshness. These refer to the noises and vibrations during the drive that are perceived negatively. In this case, it involved gear noises. At the same time, the focus was also on reducing production costs and enhancing quality, i.e., creating more efficient processes to remain competitive.

The local managers recognized that the desired automatic quality control of components requires dynamic processes and therefore a move away from static specifications. Thus, the first step involved establishing the connectivity between machines and IT systems necessary for all further stages of digitalization.

Alongside the technical challenges inherent in such retrofitting, Markus Eichele, General Manager Operations at Magna Powertrain, describes additional hurdles. Foremost among these is the need to "bring people along," as Eichele puts it. This means developing the readiness to engage with new technologies and approaches—from management to specialists on the shop floor. On top of this cultural task, the reality is that downtimes are not a viable option in this business. Thus, solutions had to be sought and implemented in parallel with ongoing operations.

Central digital hub

One of the specific technical solutions involved the implementation of a fully integrated Manufacturing Execution System (MES). The objective behind this was clear: to conduct all shop floor processes MES-based in the future. Such a system not only enables real-time monitoring and control of manufacturing—thereby increasing transparency and efficiency—but also allows the supplier to quickly identify and eliminate bottlenecks and inefficiencies. Additionally, the MES improves product quality by technically supporting the traceability of materials and processes. This is particularly important for the automotive industry, where, as is well known, exceptionally high quality standards and traceability are required.

Since then, production scheduling at Magna has also been MES-based. The system captures real-time data from machines, production lines, and personnel to create detailed production plans. It takes into account the availability and capacity of resources, ensuring that they are used as efficiently as possible. It constantly monitors production progress, responds to deviations, and can also integrate quality controls. By analyzing the data collected and reporting the results, such a system enables continuous improvements and increases production efficiency. "A closed loop is created from production planning to production execution and back to planning, forming a control circuit," summarizes Markus Eichele. This simplifies shop floor processes while simultaneously reducing system interfaces.

Achieving success with smart concepts

Thus, the MES forms an important part of the technical foundation for two key approaches at Magna Powertrain, termed "Smart Quality" and "Smart Maintenance."

The first aspect refers to the monitoring of quality during production. For this, the component, tool, and machine must be continuously monitored and compared with threshold values. This ensures smooth functioning at the level of individual parts. The second aspect relates to condition-based maintenance, also known as Condition Based Maintenance (CBM). This approach stipulates that maintenance actions are performed as needed, dynamically, rather than based on a fixed and thus rigid interval. If problems are looming, they are detected in advance. "This transforms repairs from unplanned downtimes to planned ones," sums up Markus Eichele effectively. This proactive maintenance strategy not only enhances operational reliability but also optimizes resource utilization and reduces disruptions.

And the results—a noticeable reduction in scrap, tool cost reduction, and higher machine availability—speak for themselves. However, beyond KPIs and directly measurable outcomes, this move seems to have paid off for the company as well, as the feedback from the shop floor is "consistently positive," according to the site manager.

It may also be due to the fact that in Neuenstein, it feels like the employees working on the machines are genuinely being included in the digital transformation. During a tour of the halls, several large and visually striking monitors are noticeable, continuously providing all sorts of information. The data is automatedly processed in the background, and the derived information is made available on the shop floor. According to Magna, these digital dashboards replace 16,244 pages of paper per year, equivalent to an annual CO₂ saving of 85.9 kilograms, and provide onsite employees with real-time insights into the production processes and energy consumption. The goals are to reduce paper use and increase transparency across all levels in the facility. This transparency consistently proves to be a success factor for employee acceptance of new technologies, a fact that seems to hold true here as well.