Automotive manufacturers in Europe are facing major changes to several processes. These processes include their new product introduction, manufacturing, and service after sales processes. The changes come in the wake of the European Union (EU) Directive 2000/53/EC on end of life vehicles (ELV) and Directive 2002/95/EC on the restriction of the use of hazardous substances (RoHS) in electrical and electronic equipment. Failure to reach regulation targets will cost each original equipment manufacturer (OEM) approximately 1 billion euros annually.

As the automotive industry continues to expand, the need for cost-efficient responses to regulation that strives for process efficiency grows increasingly important. The automotive industry demands robust, flexible solutions that provide insight into business processes in order to remain competitive and profitable.

This paper illustrates how automotive manufacturers can use Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and business process management (BPM), including business activity monitoring (BAM) methodologies and technologies, to develop and deploy optimized solutions. Such solutions will help address the carbon impact of the post-sales management of hazardous vehicle materials and recycling of the vehicle materials upon end of life.

This paper unites existing methods and technologies including process operational status, event correlation, aggregation, and predictive analysis. It explores future technologies that create a vision for addressing ELV environment challenges. It also outlines some of the dynamics that drive change in the automotive industry and discusses ELV environmental challenges that are facing the industry. PLM, BPM, and BAM are introduced along with the key technologies that are used by those disciplines and how they all come together in a PLM implementation. This paper then applies the methods and technologies to a case study about auditing the configuration of every vehicle that contains these hazardous materials and monitoring and reporting the effectiveness of recycling efforts.

Introduction

Changing dynamics in the automotive industry

Vehicle ELV-related environmental pressures on the industry

Introduction to PLM, BPM, and BAM

Adopting BPM and BAM with PLM

Addressing environmental pressures on the automotive OEM

Benefits and use case of combining PLM, BPM, and BAM

Conclusion