Why Tier 1 Automotive Suppliers Use Custom Material Handling Solutions

The United States automotive industry generates more than $953 billion every year. But not all that value comes from consumer sales.

In fact, there’s a whole chain of parts and materials that goes into every car that rolls off the production line. Economists divide suppliers of these components into three categories, or Tiers, and each has its own set of material handling challenges. 

Material handling is particularly tricky for Tier 1 automotive suppliers, who deliver completed products that often don’t fit neatly into cartons or pallet loads. Frequently, your standard carts and trucks can’t deliver for Tier 1 suppliers. 

Before we explain how Tier 1 suppliers solve their material handling challenges, however, let’s take a step back and review the shape of the U.S. automotive manufacturing industry. 

After all, when you know what a Tier 1 automotive supplier is, you’ll understand why custom material handling solutions are so important for this segment of the industry — and why they might be just what you need, too. 

What Is a Tier 1 Automotive Supplier? 

The three Tiers of automotive suppliers flow upward from raw materials to complete products, ready for installation on the automotive production line. Here’s the difference between the three tiers of automotive suppliers: 

• Tier 3 automotive suppliers provide raw materials: leather, metal, raw rubber, plastics, and more. 
• Tier 2 automotive suppliers turn those raw materials into components, like fabrics, engine parts, electrical wires, plastic parts, and processed tire rubber. 
• Tier 1 automotive suppliers take components and put them together into ready-to-install car parts: engines, seats, wheels, tires, lighting systems, and HVAC, for example. 

At Tiers 2 and 3, many products come in the form of sheets, blocks, bags, or other bulk units. Many of these fit nicely into pallet loads. For sheet materials, stock Panel Carts and Sheet Racks provide safe, efficient material handling.
 
For Tier 1 automotive suppliers, however, even the best Industrial Cart may not improve safety or throughput. After all, car seating doesn’t stack nicely, and you can’t build multiple engines into a cubical pallet load. 

Luckily, custom material handling solutions from BHS, Inc. solve material handling challenges for Tier 1 automotive suppliers. 

How do we know? Because we’ve already done it. 

How Custom Trailer Carts Improved Throughput for a Tier 1 Automotive Supplier

Among Tier 1 automotive suppliers, material handling solutions have to specifically match the need. If you manufacture seating, for example, you need carts with shelves designed to accommodate seatbacks. If you manufacture tires, your needs will be totally different. 

When a leading material handling equipment dealer had a chance to work with a tier 1 automotive OEM, they reached out to BHS, Inc. to develop a custom solution — which led to multiple material handling projects with the vehicle-seating OEM.

The first custom trailer cart incorporated a unique combination of shelves, rails, and integrated canvas bags. The BHS engineering team worked with the dealer and a supplier of canvas bags to design and manufacture the ideal solution, which the customer ordered. 

More custom orders from the automotive supplier followed, and the collaboration continued. Learn more by reading the full case study here. 

Custom manufacturing isn’t just valuable for Tier 1 automotive suppliers. If you work with materials or products that aren’t easy to carry with standard equipment, custom solutions can save you time, money, and ergonomic risk. 

The BHS engineering team can help. Fill out our Custom Manufacturing form to start the conversation, or call the BHS Sales Team at 1.800.247.9500.