Premium Automotive OEM reduces rework costs and boosts FPY with E/E Inspector
Challenge
A premium European OEM was struggling with complex new vehicle architectures and the rising difficulty of tracing electrical and software errors on the production line. The intricate interdependencies between systems made it hard for in-line and off-line rework teams to identify root causes, resulting in reduced first-pass yield (FPY), growing rework rates, and delayed ramp-ups.
Traditional diagnostics couldn’t keep pace with the level of system complexity, and plant technicians lacked vehicle-specific data during troubleshooting. This made repair efforts inconsistent, time-consuming, and highly dependent on expert availability—leading to downtime and escalating labor costs across plants and vehicle models.
Approach
To address these challenges, the OEM implemented SPREAD’s E/E Inspector in Production. The rollout began with a 3-month ramp-up phase that ingested wiring harnesses, BoMs, diagnostic logs, 3D models, and more into SPREAD’s Product Twin platform.
This was followed by a fast rollout across 5+ plants and 30+ vehicle models. Plant teams were equipped with VIN-specific vehicle data including 2D and 3D component views, localized error information, and wiring schematics. Troubleshooting tasks became guided, faster, and independent of individual plant knowledge or line configuration.
The following SPREAD solutions were deployed:
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E/E Inspector in Production: Delivered vehicle-specific diagnostics and system views to plant teams
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Visual fault localization Enabled error tracing in both 2D and 3D digital views
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Guided resolution Directly linked electrical issues to their root causes for faster in-line and off-line repair
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Impact
- Up to €500k saved per line, per year: through reduced rework time and effort
- +5 vehicles per day and line: prevented from being sent to off-line troubleshooting
- 75% faster troubleshooting: driven by guided diagnostics and root cause visibility
“In the future workers will rotate more, even to other plants where processes might be different. With solutions like E/E Inspector everyone will be able to work anywhere.”
— Plant Manager
