Catalyzing Success Through Expert Consulting

Delivery performance is one of those metrics that looks straightforward until something goes wrong. When it does, the knock-on effects move fast. A Tier 1 supplier falls behind, the OEM’s production line starts running short, and every week of backlog makes the recovery harder because the target keeps moving while the gap stays open. This is the situation Catalydd stepped into at an automotive OEM supplier during the post-Covid recovery period, where a 10-week backlog had created a delivery crisis that neither extra effort nor extra pressure was resolving.

The Situation: A Backlog That Kept Growing

Post-Covid, the OEM was facing a serious shortage of parts at its overseas location. A 10-week backlog had accumulated, and the Tier 1 supplier was under pressure to make up lost ground fast. Manpower shortages had disrupted both planning and execution, and the pressure to produce excess quantities was generating quality issues that compounded the problem: parts were being produced but rejected, which meant fewer conforming parts were being dispatched than the plan required.

The delivery shortfall was not simply a volume problem. It was a planning and quality problem presenting as a volume problem. Pushing for more output from a process generating rejections produces more rejections, not more dispatches. Solving the delivery crisis meant addressing both the planning discipline and the quality gaps simultaneously.

The Solution: PPC Engineers on the Ground

Catalydd deployed a team of Production Planning and Control Engineers to work directly with the OEM team. The PPC team’s role was specific: ensure maximum quantities of conforming parts were produced at Tier 1 and across its sub-supplier network in line with the dispatch plan, and track performance against that plan with enough visibility to intervene quickly when gaps appeared.

Alongside the PPC deployment, Catalydd’s Quality Engineering team worked with the OEM’s STA team to close the quality gaps driving rejections at Tier 1. This covered Burst Run and Run at Rate activities for eight parts, cycle time studies, capacity calculations, PPAP and PSW activities across three phases for four parts, fixture verification and corrections for eight parts, industrialisation support for machines and fixtures, Standard LAB completion, and CCAR follow-up through to closure.

The two workstreams were interdependent. Better planning discipline produces better dispatch numbers only when the parts being produced are conforming. The quality work created the conforming parts; the PPC work ensured they moved through the supply chain on schedule.

The Results: 98% Dispatch Achievement at Tier 1

The dispatch data shows a supply chain recovery that was both rapid and sustained.

At Tier 1, dispatch volumes moved from 1,613 units before Catalydd’s involvement in September 2020 to 8,390 in October, 16,847 in November, and 31,687 in December. Against the monthly dispatch plan, Catalydd achieved an average of 98% at Tier 1 across the engagement period. Across the sub-supplier network, average achievement against plan reached 61%. The January 2021 figure of 25,875 units reflects a capacity constraint at the facility, not a deterioration in quality or planning performance.

A 98% dispatch achievement against plan in a post-crisis recovery situation, across a supply chain that was producing fewer than 2,000 units per month at the start of the engagement, represents a genuinely significant operational turnaround.

Why Delivery Goals Require More Than a Planning Fix

The most important lesson from this engagement is that delivery performance and quality performance are the same problem when the supply chain is under stress. An OEM supplier facing a backlog that responds by pushing volume through a process with unresolved quality gaps will find that rejection rates climb faster than output does, and the net conforming dispatch actually falls.

Sustainable delivery recovery requires the process to be capable of producing conforming parts at the required rate before the planning team can reliably commit to and hit dispatch targets. The sequence matters: fix the quality, then accelerate the plan.

For automotive OEM suppliers dealing with delivery pressure from customers, the starting point is always an honest assessment of where conforming parts are being lost in the process. Inspection sorting at the end of the line is the most expensive way to manage quality. Process-level fixes are what actually restore dispatch performance.

How Catalydd Supports Delivery Recovery at OEM Suppliers

Catalydd’s combined Quality Engineering and PPC Engineering capability is specifically suited to situations where delivery shortfalls have both a quality cause and a planning cause, which describes the majority of supply chain crises in automotive manufacturing.

The team deploys on the ground at supplier facilities, working alongside production, quality, and planning teams rather than operating remotely. Offices in Pune, Chennai, and Faridabad provide coverage across India’s major automotive manufacturing regions, and the team has experience working across Tier 1 and Tier 2 supplier levels on both quality improvement and delivery performance engagements.

If your business is facing OEM pressure on delivery targets, the conversation worth having is about what is actually causing the shortfall, because the solution depends entirely on the answer.

To Conclude

To understand how quality improvement directly supports delivery performance, read: When Quality Breaks Under Pressure: How Catalydd Helped an OEM Supplier Fix Both Output and Quality.

To explore how broader quality consulting supports supply chain performance, read: Quality Consulting Services: What They Are and Why Manufacturers Cannot Afford to Ignore Them.

To speak with Catalydd about delivery recovery or supplier quality support, reach out to the team today.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How does a PPC Engineering team improve delivery performance at a Tier 1 supplier?

1. PPC Engineers work directly with the production and supply chain teams to align production schedules with dispatch plans, identify bottlenecks across Tier 1 and sub-supplier levels, and track daily performance with enough visibility to course-correct before weekly targets are missed.

1. Can delivery goals be achieved while quality issues are still being resolved?

1. Yes, and this is typically how recovery engagements work: containment and planning improvements produce early dispatch gains while the deeper quality fixes are being implemented, so the OEM sees improving numbers throughout the engagement rather than waiting for all quality work to complete before any delivery improvement begins.