Magna Automotive Inventory Management Case Study

Implementation of THINK WMS in the Automotive and Manufacturing sector

Magna is a large multi-national supplier to all the world’s major automotive manufacturers. Their largest UK division contacted THINK for support when they were awarded a huge new contract with BMW.

The challenge that Magna set for THINK was to provide them with a flexible inventory management system that met all the required automotive standards of QS9000 and VDA 6.1 whilst also providing some additional functionality specific to the automotive industry, such as sequencing to customers, internal line side sequencing and kitting, amongst many others.

The size of the challenge? Four separate and complex product lines to be supplied in sequence at a volume of 5500 vehicles per week, with the most complex assembly containing over 400 components and in excess of 1,000,000 potential derivatives. This was the largest and most challenging project that THINK had taken on.

THINK consultants worked with Magna and BMW personnel as an integral part of a project team to design and implement logistics processes to meet the ever-demanding requirements of the automotive industry. Due to the size and complexity of the task, THINK consultants were engaged in this project for over 12 months and during this time worked very closely with Magna personnel at all levels. This level of involvement and Magna’s commitment to supporting the project resulted in successful implementation and increased functionality based around both users’ and management’s requirements that are now included as standard in our software.