Automotive Manufacturing
Keep the quality evidence, the part genealogy, and the production plan in one system instead of three binders and a spreadsheet.
Automotive work is judged twice: once on the part, and again on the paperwork behind it. A tier supplier has to hold a PPAP file per part number, keep the control plan and PFMEA aligned with the process actually running, prove MSA and capability on the characteristics the customer called out, and still ship to a daily release without a single missed window. WorkCell keeps the production record that most of that evidence is built from. Versioned bills of material and routings carry the revision each lot was built to, operator terminals capture inspection results and labor at the operation, and lot and serial traceability holds from the received coil or resin lot through the shipped container. Finite capacity scheduling plans the floor against real machines, not an infinite one.
Tier 1, 2, and 3 suppliers building to OEM prints — stampers, machine shops, injection molders, weldment and assembly suppliers, and the sub-tier shops that feed them under IATF 16949 flow-downs.
| Standard | What It Requires |
|---|---|
| IATF 16949 | Automotive quality management built on ISO 9001, adding traceability planning by risk and severity, control plans, PFMEA, measurement system analysis, statistical process control, and a required problem-solving methodology. |
| PPAP and APQP | Eighteen elements of evidence, submitted at one of five levels the customer specifies, proving across the five APQP phases that a process can make the part before production is approved. |
| ISO 9001 | The management-system foundation IATF 16949 extends, covering document control, corrective action, internal audit, and management review. |
| RoHS | Restricted substances in electrical and electronic components, declared and substantiated down the supply chain. |
| REACH | Substances of very high concern declared and tracked through the supply chain, which in automotive usually arrives as an IMDS material declaration request from the customer. |
Receiving captures the coil, bar, or resin lot and its certification. Issues to a job keep the link, completions carry lot or serial identity forward, and shipments record what went to which customer on which date. When a customer names a suspect lot, the affected part numbers, quantities, and ship dates come back as a query instead of two days of cross-referencing travelers against shipper copies.
Mill and supplier certifications stored against the receiving lot, so they follow the material into every job it feeds instead of living in an email thread.
Measured values captured at the operation against the characteristic, which is the data the dimensional results and initial process study elements of a PPAP file are built from.
Generated from the job record, tying the shipped quantity to the lots, serials, and completed inspections behind it.
Severity-classified nonconformances with disposition and containment, closed by an 8-D that references the job and the lot it came from.
The component lots, operations, operators, and routing revision behind a shipped unit, available as a query rather than a reconstruction.
Dimensional results in one workbook, the control plan in another, material certs on a shared drive, the gage study on the quality engineer's laptop, and the operator sign-off on a paper traveler. Eighteen elements, five possible submission levels, one part number — and the next engineering change starts the collection over.
The plan says check every fifth piece with a bore gage at operation 30. The floor checks when the operator remembers and writes it on the back of the traveler. Nothing connects the plan to the evidence, so the gap surfaces when a customer auditor walks the line and asks to see records.
An 830 planning schedule moves week four, an 862 shipping schedule pulls Tuesday's quantity forward, and the planner finds out when the material handler cannot fill the rack. Without a plan that reschedules against real capacity, the answer is premium freight and a scorecard demerit that outlives the week it happened in.
The customer calls about a suspect coil and wants affected part numbers, quantities, and ship dates today. The data sits in receiving logs, travelers, and shipper copies that were never joined, so the answer costs two people a day and still goes out with a caveat attached.
Scrap at the press, a premium freight charge, and an overrun on setup all land in the general ledger with nothing tying them to the part that caused them. The quote still assumes last year's cycle time, and nobody learns which programs lose money until the quarter closes.
Lot and serial traceability through the whole build
Receiving records the lot and its certification, issues to a job preserve the link, and completions carry lot or serial identity forward into as-built genealogy. The identification and traceability clause 8.5.2.1 asks for is a by-product of the transactions, not a parallel logbook somebody maintains.
Inspection, nonconformance, and corrective action in one loop
AQL sampling plans and inspection templates define what gets checked and how often. A failure raises a severity-classified nonconformance, and a systemic one escalates into an 8-D with containment, root cause, and verification attached to the job that produced it.
Versioned BOMs and routings with effective dating
Every bill of material and routing carries a revision and an effective date, so a lot built in March still resolves to the structure in effect in March. Changes supersede rather than overwrite. This is versioning and effective dating, not a routed change-approval workflow.
Finite capacity scheduling against real machines
The scheduler plans against actual machine and labor capacity instead of assuming infinite capacity, and a proposal run lets a planner test a sequence before committing it. When a release moves, you see which shipments move with it before you promise anything.
Shop floor terminals that capture the record once
Operators clock on to an operation, report good and scrap quantities, and enter inspection results at the machine. The cost record, the traceability, and the quality evidence come out of the same entry, so the floor is not doing its paperwork twice.
Job costing stamped on every posting
Every posting carries a job as its cost object, so labor, material, scrap, and outside work accumulate against the part number that caused them. Margin by program becomes a report rather than an argument between the controller and the estimator.
AQL inspections, severity-classified nonconformances, and 8-D corrective action tied to the job.
ProductionFinite capacity scheduling and operator terminals capturing quantities, scrap, and results.
InventoryLot and serial traceability from receiving through shipment, with certifications attached.
EngineeringVersioned, effective-dated bills of material and routings per part revision.
Quoting, engineering, inventory, scheduling, shop floor, and job costing on one database.
MESOperator terminals capturing actual hours, quantities, scrap, and inspection results at the operation.
QMSInspection records, nonconformances, and 8-D corrective action kept against the job that produced them.
APSFinite capacity scheduling for repeat production against a release schedule that keeps moving.
Suppliers working under OEM flow-downs, release schedules, and scorecards.
IATF 16949What the standard requires and which records WorkCell keeps for it.
PPAP and APQPThe eighteen elements, the five submission levels, and where the evidence comes from.
Metal ManufacturingStamping, fabrication, and machining with heat lot traceability and outside processing.
Can WorkCell generate our PPAP package?
Not as a one-click submission. WorkCell holds the production-side evidence several of the eighteen PPAP elements are built from — dimensional results, material certifications, part and process identification, and the records of compliance behind them — so the file is assembled from exported records rather than retyped. The warrant itself stays yours to sign.
Does WorkCell make us IATF 16949 compliant?
No software can. WorkCell supports the records the standard asks you to keep: identification and traceability per clause 8.5.2.1, inspection results tied to the operation that produced them, severity-classified nonconformances, and 8-D corrective action. Certification is granted to your plant by an accredited registrar after an audit of your system, not to a tool.
Does WorkCell read our customer's EDI 830 and 862 releases?
No. EDI is on the roadmap and is not a live integration today, so releases are entered or imported rather than consumed automatically. The only live integrations are QuickBooks Online and Shopify; everything else goes through the REST API and webhooks. We would rather tell you that now than at go-live.
Can WorkCell link my process flow, PFMEA, and control plan so they stay aligned?
Not today. Control plan and PFMEA authoring is not built, and we will not pretend otherwise — shops doing this seriously use dedicated FMEA tools or linked workbooks. What WorkCell does hold is the inspection record the control plan calls for, captured at the operation against the routing revision in effect.
Can I trace a shipped part back to the coil or lot it came from?
Yes. Receiving records the lot and its material certification, issues to a job keep the link, and completions carry lot or serial identity forward. A suspect-lot containment question resolves by query — which jobs consumed it, which shipments went out, which customer received them — instead of by pulling travelers.
Does WorkCell do MSA and SPC?
Gage studies and control charts are not built. Inspection results are captured as measured values against characteristics at the operation, which is the data an MSA or capability study runs on, so the numbers come out of WorkCell rather than off a clipboard. The study itself happens in your statistics tool.
See it run on your parts.
Tell us how your plant runs today and we will tell you straight whether WorkCell is a fit.