Perform inventories of production equipment efficiently.
Remotely or on site.

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  • Vendor toolings are manufacturing tools in the part supplier´s posession, but typically owned by the manufacturer of the final product (in the automotive industry, the OEM). They are manufactured specifically for the production of model-specific parts and are generally paid for in a single payment.

    • orca connects the process partners of the tools across companies as clients, contractual partners, operators and tool manufacturers.

    • The process partners can access production resources according to their relationship to the tool. One relationship is, for example, customer to tool.

    • Certain processes, e.g. stocktaking, can be triggered for production resources.

    • Every means of production has a location where the means of production is physically and permanently located. In orca, the location is a property of the means of production and an organizational characteristic of the supplier. The location is characterized by an address and a geo-location. The possible locations are maintained for each company.

  • Each supplier needs at least one tool coordinator to manage the inventory.

    • On the supplier side, this person coordinates the proper execution of the inventory and is responsible for the timely and complete reporting of the inventory results.

    • In the company, this usually comes from sales or key account management.

    Click here to go directly to the inventory process.

  • For suppliers there are basically 4 roles in orca :

    • Administrator - creates locations and users

    • Tool coordinator - controls and manages the entire inventory

    • Tool supervisor - controls individual inventory orders and tools (optional)

    • Stocktaker - physically carries out the stocktake

    Think about how you want to position yourself in your company. One person can also take on several roles. It is important that you appoint a tool coordinator in preparation for the inventory. This person can then create all other users through his or her function as administrator.

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INVENTORY

With the inventory, the contractor and all parties in the supply chain confirm that the manufacturing assets exist and are at the expected locations and companies. The result is similar to an inventory of your own production equipment and assets, but across multiple parties and multiple locations.

BMW logo with blue and white emblem and black border.

  • The BMW Group uses orca for the inventory of SBM purchased parts and for relocation and recycling processes.

    In scope are 200,000 tools, in 70 countries, at 3000 companies. Including subcontractors.

    From July 2021, orca will be used for the inventory of vendor tooling at suppliers (so-called "SBM for purchased parts"). After a short pilot phase, the tools of BMW Motoren Steyr, Oxford and the main stock owned by BMW AG will go through the inventory until 2023. Completely orca based, at 1st and also up to n-tier.

    Relocation and recycling processes will then be added in early 2023.

    The acceptance of new tools as well.
    Thus, the entire tool inventory management for SBM purchased parts is implemented on orca.

    BMW has chosen orca as the specialized platform for tool-related processes in global value chains and accompanies orca as a "premium customer"

  • I am a supplier and would like to know how the inventory process works at the BMW Group?

    • Further information can be found here.

Important information

I am a supplier.