Hundreds of Thousands of Vehicles in Focus
Gareth, what exactly do you mean by "vehicle processing" at Leadec?
Gareth Crawford: We include all the activities that take place between rolling off the assembly line and loading onto the dealers' car transporters. As soon as a completed vehicle leaves the assembly line, it first ends up in a kind of intermediate parking area. There, Leadec takes charge of it. It is checked - for damage, for example - cleaned, carefully cared for and parked in perfect condition in its place on the factory premises. There, the vehicles are then picked up by transportation companies and transported to all states and even other countries. We are the central interface between OEM and dealer.
What is the particular challenge in this job?
The challenge lies in the sheer volume of processes and in the fact that simply nothing at all can go wrong. Perfection is our minimum standard. In 2022 alone, our employees in the U.S. handled nearly 440,000 vehicles this way at various customer locations. That's around 1,200 vehicles a day. And now, a new feature in our Leadec.os software platform, which we developed and implemented specifically for vehicle processing, also supports this process.
What exactly can this new feature do?
Equipped with a small scanner, Leadec employees take over the vehicle as it exits in the plant. They record all the data, document any damage and are told exactly where to park the vehicle. Once the job is done, Leadec.os sends a message to the transportation companies’ system who then pick up the vehicles and ship them to next stage in the logistic network. There are multiple benefits to our new system. For starters, there is a big productivity gain when setting up new operations: it now takes hours instead of weeks for new configuration or enhancements. There is also the added benefit of to the end user as this is a more flexible and nimble tool.
Are you satisfied with the result?”
Absolutely. I've been working with our Leadec.os platform for several years now, and it offers us almost limitless technical possibilities. A project like this shows that we can continue to tailor the platform to the needs of the customer and our very specific application possibilities. The end-to-end approach proves its worth! And the project was also special for me because the collaboration between the development team in the U.S. and the global IT team worked so well. This expertise directly benefits our customers. By thinking ahead and creating our own software tools, we become the partner of choice for a digitized factory.
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