Industry solution

Automotive & Mobility

Keep the line building and the fleet earning, from supplier dock to depot

Plant, logistics, fleet and service teams on connected tools, so a late truck, a suspect lot or a van off road is handled once.

Products
8
Challenges
6
Concepts
15
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Electric van leaving an assembly line, with a charging depot and a supplier truck at a loading dock behind it
MoveTheWheels(opens MoveTheWheels in a new tab)ManufacturedOps(opens ManufacturedOps in a new tab)AssetHandler(opens AssetHandler in a new tab)AdapterCloud(opens AdapterCloud in a new tab)CrewFoundry(opens CrewFoundry in a new tab)FluidGrids(opens FluidGrids in a new tab)BigConsole(opens BigConsole in a new tab)Botlit(opens Botlit in a new tab)

The problem

Why automotive operations are hard to run as one picture

Automotive operations run on thin buffers: hours of parts at the line, a few spare vans per depot, a handful of qualified technicians. The signals that matter sit in separate systems, so problems surface late.

Vehicle production is built on lean buffers. Just-in-time and just-in-sequence deliveries keep hours, not days, of parts at the line, and the build sequence is fixed well before the trucks arrive. When one inbound load runs late, the plant has a narrow window to resequence or expedite, yet the truck is visible to logistics while the schedule lives with the plant. Quality works the same way: a drifting tool on one station can touch a whole shift of vehicles that are already moving toward yards, carriers and customers.

Electrification and connectivity have widened the job. Vans and cars now carry telematics units that need firmware and certificates kept current, depots run chargers, and battery work calls for technicians with specific high-voltage qualifications. Many makers and mobility operators also run fleets or subscription offers, so plant, fleet and service teams are judged together on whether vehicles are available when customers need them.

Each of these functions usually has its own system: execution on the floor, transport management for trucks, a maintenance tool for vehicles, vendor portals for devices, spreadsheets for training records and slides for the weekly review. The hand-offs between them happen by phone, email and exports, and that is exactly where late trucks, suspect lots and off-road vans slip through.

Who this is for

  • Plant manager or VP of manufacturing

    Keeping the line running to takt, with parts, people and quality problems visible hours before they stop a shift.

  • Materials and inbound logistics manager

    Knowing which supplier loads threaten line-side coverage in time to resequence or expedite, instead of paying for panic freight.

  • Quality and warranty manager

    Scoping a suspect lot or tool to exact vehicles quickly, and proving where every one went when the corrective action closes.

  • Fleet and depot operations manager

    Vehicles roadworthy where the routes start, service planned around the day, and customers getting the availability they were promised.

  • Connected vehicle and IT platform lead

    One governed inventory of telematics units, chargers and plant gateways, with firmware and certificate gaps tied to the vehicle they sit in.

  • Service network and aftersales director

    Enough qualified technicians for electric-vehicle work at every site, with lapsing qualifications spotted before a job card is opened.

A day in the life

The story behind the solution

A week at Larkfield Motors, from a stuck truck to a calm Friday review

Larkfield Motors builds electric vans on two assembly lines, leases many of them to parcel-delivery customers through its own subscription fleet, and services them at a handful of regional service centers. Anjali Mehta runs operations across all three. Her week shows how one late truck, one drifting torque tool or one lapsing certificate travels from plant to depot, and what changes when the tools her teams use are built to hand problems to each other.

  1. Monday 05:40

    The harness truck that did not arrive

    Kwame Asante, Larkfield's materials planner, gets the alert before the dock clerk does: the rear harness load is stuck behind a highway closure, and Line 2 has under five hours of harnesses at the rack. Instead of starting a phone chain, he opens the coverage board, sees 27 vans exposed, and pulls forward vans that use the other harness variant. By 07:00 the resequence is released and an expedite is booked to cover the afternoon gap.

    How this is solved: Inbound parts that decide whether the line keeps moving

  2. Tuesday 14:30

    A torque reading that changes the afternoon

    Li Wei's product audit on vans pulled from the yard flags low torque on front caliper bolts from station 14. The genealogy trace narrows it to 46 vans fastened by a replacement nutrunner during last Wednesday's second shift. Mateo Ruiz in outbound logistics receives the list as holds: 21 stopped at the yard gate, nine on a car carrier with the driver and north depot warned, ten held in a depot bay, and six already with a fleet customer, who gets a stop-use notice and a field-fix booking before the evening shift. Nobody walks the yard with a clipboard.

    How this is solved: Containing suspect vans before they reach customers

  3. Wednesday 05:50

    Nine vans that cannot leave the east depot

    Grace O'Neill opens the uptime board at the east depot before the first driver arrives. Nine vans are off road, each with a reason and a return time. Dispatch has already rebuilt the morning routes around the vans that can go, two service jobs move to the midday lull, and the one parcel customer who will be short a van hears it from Grace rather than finding out at the gate.

    How this is solved: Keeping fleet vans earning instead of waiting for service

  4. Thursday 11:00

    Which vans missed the update?

    Tomás Ferreira needs to know which telematics units skipped Tuesday's firmware update. The compliance view lists them by vehicle and depot: most sit in vans parked at one customer yard, eleven are stockroom spares, and four were swapped in a workshop and never re-registered. He waives the spares with a reason, schedules the yard visit and turns the four swaps into work orders. Two plant gateways with certificates expiring next month join the same queue.

    How this is solved: A connected estate nobody can fully list

  5. Friday 08:20

    Three battery jobs and one qualified technician

    Irina Petrova's north service center has three battery-module jobs and one high-voltage-qualified technician on shift. The qualification matrix flagged the gap on Tuesday, so a qualified technician from the south center is already on loan for the day, and a renewal session is booked for the colleague whose certificate lapses next week. Each job goes to a technician the matrix lists as current.

    How this is solved: Enough qualified hands for high-voltage work

  6. Friday 16:00

    A review that answers its own questions

    Anjali's weekly review opens on one console instead of forty slides. When the chief executive asks why east depot availability dipped on Wednesday, the Botlit agent answers from the console, citing the uptime and work-order data behind it. The room agrees on a brake-inspection push at the east depot, and operations analyst Sam Okoro confirms the workflow that schedules it before the meeting ends.

    How this is solved: One honest picture for the weekly operations review

Nothing in Anjali's week was unusual for automotive operations. What changes is where each problem goes next: from logistics to the plant, from quality to the yard and the carrier, from the vehicle to the workshop and the right technician, and finally into one picture leadership can question.

Challenges and how they are solved

6 problems, several products, one connected answer

Each challenge shows the problem as it happens, how the products are designed to hand work to each other, and the concepts that illustrate it. Share any challenge on its own.

Challenge 1 of 6

Inbound parts that decide whether the line keeps moving

MoveTheWheels(opens MoveTheWheels in a new tab)ManufacturedOps(opens ManufacturedOps in a new tab)FluidGrids(opens FluidGrids in a new tab)

The problem

At 05:40 on a Monday, a load of rear high-voltage wiring harnesses is sitting behind a highway closure two hours from the plant. The load is booked for dock 4 at 06:30. Line-side racks on the trim and final line hold under five hours at the current build rate, and the warehouse has none. Logistics can see the truck on a carrier portal, the build sequence lives in the scheduling spreadsheet, and the materials planner finds out at 09:15 when the dock clerk calls to ask where the harnesses are. By then the choice is a premium-freight run booked by phone or a hurried resequence nobody has checked against the next three hours of build orders.

What it costs

A stopped line idles a shift of people and pushes vans past the dates promised to fleet customers, while panic expedites and unchecked resequences create new shortages later in the week.

How the products work together

MoveTheWheels tracks each inbound supplier load as a shipment and is designed to hold its dock appointment, with an at-risk queue designed to flag loads trending late. A FluidGrids automation can route each at-risk load, with part numbers and predicted arrival, to ManufacturedOps. There, a line-side coverage board is designed to net that arrival against line-side and warehouse stock and the current build rate, showing hours of coverage per part and the vans exposed. The planner can open a suggested resequence on the finite-capacity schedule to pull forward vans that do not need the missing harness, and checks the knock-on effect before releasing it to the floor. If coverage still falls short, the expedite request is designed to go back to MoveTheWheels as a new booking with a carrier from its provider marketplace, tracked like any other load.

The outcome it is designed for

The coverage board is designed so the materials planner learns about a late truck as hours of line coverage while there is still time to act, and can resequence or expedite with later build orders in view.

The concepts behind it

Challenge 2 of 6

Containing suspect vans before they reach customers

ManufacturedOps(opens ManufacturedOps in a new tab)MoveTheWheels(opens MoveTheWheels in a new tab)

The problem

At 14:30 on a Tuesday, the product audit, which re-checks finished vans pulled from the yard, finds front brake caliper bolts below specification on vans from station 14. The readings point to a replacement nutrunner used there during last Wednesday's second shift: its own torque records looked normal, but the bolts it fastened did not. The quality engineer needs a precise answer: which vans did that tool fasten, and where are they now? Six days on, some are in the plant yard, some are on a car carrier heading to the north depot, some wait in a depot bay and a few are already with a fleet customer. Genealogy sits on paper travelers, outbound loads in the logistics system and customer handovers in email, so containment starts with someone walking the yard with a clipboard and someone else calling the carrier.

What it costs

Containment drawn too wide quarantines a week of good vans; drawn too narrow, a suspect vehicle reaches a customer. Either way the corrective action closes without clean evidence of where every unit went.

How the products work together

ManufacturedOps records the failed audit as a non-conformance against the station 14 operation, and its genealogy view traces the tool and its time window forward to the exact vans that nutrunner fastened. That list of vehicle identification numbers is designed to hand off to MoveTheWheels, where a quality hold board matches each van to its order, shipment and latest tracking event. Vans still in the yard get a gate hold, those on a carrier trigger a message to the driver and the receiving depot, those at a depot are held in the bay, and delivered vans get a stop-use notice and a field-fix booking with the documents attached. Each hold is designed to carry the non-conformance reference back, so when quality closes the corrective action in ManufacturedOps, the record shows where each van was found and what was done with it.

The outcome it is designed for

Containment is designed to be scoped to named vehicles rather than whole build weeks, with every hold, notice and release tied to one non-conformance record.

The concepts behind it

Challenge 3 of 6

Keeping fleet vans earning instead of waiting for service

AssetHandler(opens AssetHandler in a new tab)MoveTheWheels(opens MoveTheWheels in a new tab)FluidGrids(opens FluidGrids in a new tab)

The problem

At 05:50 on a Wednesday, the east depot of a van subscription fleet has routes starting for three parcel-delivery customers and nine vans that cannot go. Two passed their service interval over the weekend, one on distance and one on time, two logged fault codes overnight, one has a sliding-door defect from yesterday's post-trip inspection, and the rest are in the workshop waiting on parts. The dispatcher learns this one van at a time as drivers report in. The service calendar lives in the workshop system, fault codes in the telematics portal and routes in the dispatch tool, so the gaps are filled by phone and customers get fewer vans than their contracts expect.

What it costs

Vans off road at the start of the day mean missed customer routes and strained availability commitments, while workshop time goes to the wrong vehicles at the busiest hour.

How the products work together

AssetHandler holds every van as an asset with preventive maintenance plans by kilometers and by days, a single work-order queue and the service history behind each repair. A FluidGrids automation can turn telematics fault-code alerts and driver inspection defects into work orders against the right van. The fleet uptime board is designed to rank vehicles by depot on what threatens tomorrow's routes: service due, open work orders, parts status and expected return-to-service time. That off-road list and its return times are designed to hand off to MoveTheWheels, where route planning is designed to consider only roadworthy vans, and a dispatcher reviews the suggested reassignments before accepting them. Service slots then move into the midday lull when vans are back at the depot.

The outcome it is designed for

The uptime board is designed so depot managers start each day knowing which vans are off road and when they return, with routes already planned around them rather than discovered at the gate.

The concepts behind it

Challenge 4 of 6

A connected estate nobody can fully list

AdapterCloud(opens AdapterCloud in a new tab)AssetHandler(opens AssetHandler in a new tab)

The problem

At 11:00 on a Thursday, the connected-vehicle lead checks a telematics firmware rollout: most units took the update, several hundred did not, and the vendor portal cannot say which vans they sit in. Some are in vans parked at a customer yard with poor signal, some are spares in a stockroom, and some were swapped in a workshop and never re-registered. The depot chargers run three firmware versions, and the edge gateways that carry machine data from the plant have certificates expiring next month. The inventory lives in a vendor portal, a charger management console, a spreadsheet and the IT asset register, and none of them agree.

What it costs

Unpatched units and lapsing certificates widen security exposure, stale devices feed stale location and fault data to fleet customers, and technicians drive to the wrong van.

How the products work together

AdapterCloud is designed to connect to the telematics platform, the charger management system and the plant edge gateways through IoT and edge adapters, keeping one inventory of every discovered device. AssetHandler holds each van and charger as a physical asset with its device linked to it, and is designed to share that link with AdapterCloud as tags, so every unit carries its vehicle and depot. AdapterCloud is then designed to evaluate policies written as data against each device: telematics firmware at or above a minimum version, gateway certificates valid for at least thirty days, every device tagged with its vehicle and depot. Drift records show expected and observed values, and violations are acknowledged, resolved or waived with a reason. A unit that must be swapped is designed to go back to AssetHandler as a work-order request against the named van. The telemetry itself stays in the telematics platform.

The outcome it is designed for

The compliance view is designed so the connected-vehicle lead can see which units are out of policy, and which vehicles carry them, in one queue rather than four consoles.

The concepts behind it

Challenge 5 of 6

Enough qualified hands for high-voltage work

CrewFoundry(opens CrewFoundry in a new tab)AssetHandler(opens AssetHandler in a new tab)ManufacturedOps(opens ManufacturedOps in a new tab)

The problem

At 08:20 on a Friday, the north service center has three battery-module jobs booked. Of its seven technicians, two hold a current high-voltage qualification: one is on leave and the other's certificate lapses next week. The service manager finds this out when the first job card is opened. Qualification records sit in a training binder and an HR spreadsheet, the service planner books bays without seeing them, and the plant's battery-line rework station has the same blind spot. The only fixes on the day are to postpone the customer's vans or borrow a technician from another site by phone.

What it costs

Electric vans wait days for a qualified technician, the few qualified people carry the overtime, and renewals are booked only after a certificate has already lapsed.

How the products work together

CrewFoundry keeps each technician's skills and learning certificates, and is designed to track their expiry dates in its skills graph. A qualification matrix is designed to lay these out by service center and plant line: who holds a current high-voltage qualification, when it lapses and who is on leave this week. AssetHandler work orders for battery and high-voltage jobs are designed to carry the required qualification; CrewFoundry is designed to return the qualified, available technicians for each, and the service planner assigns the job from that shortlist in the AssetHandler operations hub. Rework operations from ManufacturedOps can be matched the same way. Certificates close to lapsing feed a renewal learning path, and gaps become proposals to renew, loan from another site or hire, which a manager reviews before anything changes.

The outcome it is designed for

The matrix is designed so service managers see qualification gaps days ahead of the job, and assign high-voltage work only from a shortlist of technicians whose records are current.

The concepts behind it

Challenge 6 of 6

One honest picture for the weekly operations review

FluidGrids(opens FluidGrids in a new tab)BigConsole(opens BigConsole in a new tab)Botlit(opens Botlit in a new tab)

The problem

At 16:00 on a Friday, the weekly operations review starts: vans built against plan, minutes of line stoppage, open quality holds, fleet availability by depot, device compliance and technician coverage. The operations analyst spent Thursday evening exporting from five systems into slides, and two of the numbers already disagree. When the chief executive asks why east depot availability dipped on Wednesday, the answer is a follow-up email next week. Decisions that could be made in the room wait for another round of spreadsheets.

What it costs

Leadership acts on week-old figures, meetings are spent reconciling whose number is right, and analysts build slides instead of fixing the problems behind them.

How the products work together

FluidGrids workflows can be built to collect the daily figures from ManufacturedOps, MoveTheWheels, AssetHandler, AdapterCloud and CrewFoundry through their APIs, and push them into BigConsole datasinks, so each dataset sits behind one key. BigConsole is designed to assemble an operations console with filters by plant line and depot, an Explain panel that gives plain-language findings cited to the sink and field behind them, and row-level access so a fleet customer's account lead sees only their own depots. During the review, a Botlit agent is designed to query the console and answer questions such as the Wednesday dip with cited sources, saying so plainly when the data does not cover it. When the room agrees on an action, such as a service push at one depot, the agent can trigger the matching FluidGrids workflow once a person confirms.

The outcome it is designed for

The weekly review is designed to run on one set of figures everyone can trace to its source, with questions answered in the room and follow-ups started from it.

The concepts behind it

How it fits together

How it fits together, from supplier dock to the Friday review

Each product does one job and hands the result to the next, so a problem found in one part of the operation reaches the people who can act on it without being re-keyed.

  1. To MoveTheWheels: Vehicles in scope of a non-conformance, for yard, carrier and customer holds.

  2. To AdapterCloud: Delivered vans with vehicle and depot identifiers, so each telematics unit can be tagged to its van.

  3. To AssetHandler: Out-of-policy units linked to the van or charger they sit in, with swaps as work-order requests.

  4. To CrewFoundry: Work orders that call for a current high-voltage qualification.

  5. To FluidGrids: Qualification coverage and assignment status by site.

  6. To BigConsole: Keyed datasets for line coverage, holds, uptime, compliance and qualifications.

  7. To Botlit: Live consoles the agent can query.

Step 1 of 8: Plan, build and trace

Products in this solution

What each product brings

  • MoveTheWheels

    Inbound, outbound and dispatch logistics

    Tracks supplier loads and finished-vehicle shipments on one spine with exception queues, and is designed to place quality holds on vehicles in transit and plan routes around off-road vans.

    Visit MoveTheWheelsAll concepts

  • ManufacturedOps

    Assembly plant execution, quality and genealogy

    Runs build orders against finite capacity, nets material coverage, records inspections, SPC and non-conformances, and traces part lots forward to vehicles when containment is needed.

    Visit ManufacturedOpsAll concepts

  • AssetHandler

    Fleet vehicle and plant equipment maintenance

    Holds each van, charger and machine as an asset with kilometer- and day-based service plans, one work-order queue and full service history, with connected devices linked to the asset they sit in.

    Visit AssetHandlerAll concepts

  • AdapterCloud

    Connected-device inventory and policy

    Is designed to keep telematics units, depot chargers and plant edge gateways in one inventory and evaluate them against firmware, certificate and tagging rules written as data, with drift and waivers tracked with reasons.

    Visit AdapterCloudAll concepts

  • CrewFoundry

    Technician skills, qualifications and staffing

    Keeps skills and learning certificates per technician and line operator, and is designed to track expiry dates and availability and feed renewal learning paths before qualifications lapse.

    Visit CrewFoundryAll concepts

  • FluidGrids

    Automation and data pipelines between products

    Can route at-risk loads, fault codes and quality holds between products through webhooks and API calls, and pushes daily figures into BigConsole datasinks so each dataset sits behind one key.

    Visit FluidGridsAll concepts

  • BigConsole

    Operations console for plants, depots and leadership

    Assembles governed consoles from FluidGrids datasinks with filters by line and depot, and is designed to add row-level access for customer account leads and an Explain panel that cites its sources.

    Visit BigConsoleAll concepts

  • Botlit

    Cited answers and follow-ups in operations reviews

    Agents can query BigConsole dashboards and trigger FluidGrids workflows once a person confirms, and are designed to answer operations questions with cited sources and say so plainly when nothing matches.

    Visit BotlitAll concepts

One platform underneath: Burdenoff Workspaces

All eight products run on Burdenoff Workspaces: one sign-on for plant, logistics, fleet and service teams, role-based access designed to reach down to a line or a depot, one audit trail across every hold, work order and waiver, and one bill instead of eight contracts.

Concept gallery

Every concept in this solution

15 concepts from 8 products. Each one links to its own page on the product's website, and every view has a link you can share.

Pitch kit

The Automotive & Mobility solution in one minute

Burdenoff brings together the tools automotive plants, fleets and mobility operators need, from shop-floor execution and logistics to vehicle maintenance, device governance, technician skills, automation, dashboards and AI agents, and designs them to hand problems to each other: a late supplier truck becomes hours of line coverage, a suspect tool becomes holds on named vans, a fault code becomes a work order with a qualified technician, and leadership reviews one set of figures it can trace.

  • Designed so inbound supplier loads are netted against line-side stock and the build schedule, and planners resequence or expedite in time
  • Genealogy-scoped quality holds designed to follow each suspect van through the yard, the car carrier, the depot and the customer handover
  • A fleet uptime board designed to hand off-road vans and return times to dispatch before routes start
  • One governed inventory of telematics units, chargers and plant gateways, designed to link each device to the vehicle it sits in
  • A high-voltage qualification matrix for service sites, and an operations console designed so leadership can trace every figure to its source
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Questions

Frequently asked

Do we need to replace our existing execution, transport or ERP systems?

No. The products are designed to work alongside what you run today. Each has an API, and FluidGrids workflows are designed to move data between your systems and the Burdenoff products through connectors or direct API calls. Many teams would start with a single hand-off, such as at-risk inbound loads feeding the line-side coverage board, and add the next one once it earns its place.

Does this fit a parts supplier as well as a vehicle maker?

Yes. For a supplier, the same flow is designed to work with part serials and shipments to customer plants instead of finished vehicles: line-side coverage for your own lines, genealogy-scoped holds on outbound loads, maintenance for presses and cells, and qualification records for operators on critical stations.

Does AdapterCloud collect telemetry from our vehicles?

No. AdapterCloud models and governs the devices themselves, such as telematics units, chargers and gateways, keeping them in one inventory and checking them against policy. Location and fault data stay in your telematics platform; FluidGrids can route selected alerts, such as fault codes, into AssetHandler as work orders.

Can the qualification matrix decide who is allowed to do high-voltage work?

It records qualifications, expiry dates and availability as your organization defines them, and matches jobs to people who hold them. Decisions about who may perform high-voltage work, and under which procedures, stay with your safety and service leadership.

How is access controlled across plant, fleet and customer teams?

Everything runs on Burdenoff Workspaces, with single sign-on, role-based access in every product and one audit trail. Roles are designed to scope each person's view, so a line supervisor sees their line and a depot manager their depot, and BigConsole is designed to add row-level access, so a fleet customer's account lead sees only that customer's depots.

Are these products available today?

FluidGrids is generally available; the other products are pre-launch, with waitlists open. This page describes a solution concept: how the products are designed to work together for automotive and mobility operations. Some capabilities shown here exist today and others are on each product's roadmap; we are glad to walk through what fits your plant or fleet now.

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This is a solution concept: it shows how Burdenoff products are designed to work together in this industry. The images are illustrations of the concepts, not screenshots of the actual products, and every name and figure in them is sample data.