Do you work with Tier-2 automotive suppliers under 250 employees?

Yes. That is the typical Corvalys client. We size every AI implementation for SMEs that need to ship measurable outcomes without hiring a data team.

How does AI fit with IATF 16949?

Every model is treated as an engineering deliverable. Requirements, validation, sign-off, and ongoing monitoring (drift, override rate, false positives) are documented to the same standard as any other production change.

Can the AI documentation pass an OEM customer audit?

Yes. The audit pack is shipped with the project. Data lineage, model decisions, human-in-the-loop checkpoints, and EU AI Act role mapping. So OEM auditors see what they expect to see.

How long until a Tier-2 sees ROI?

Most production-optimisation projects pay back inside 6–12 months on reduced scrap, fewer OEM defect-cost recharges, and improved first-pass yield. We size the business case during assessment so the number is yours, not ours.

AI for automotive Tier-1 & Tier-2 suppliers

OEM programmes ask suppliers for more every cycle: tighter PPM, faster defect detection, end-to-end traceability, and now an AI governance posture they can defend in an audit. Most Tier-2 suppliers do not have a data team to throw at it. We exist for exactly that gap.

Corvalys ships AI implementations that respect IATF 16949 clause expectations, integrate cleanly with your MES / ERP / QMS, and produce the documentation an OEM auditor expects to see. Without adding a parallel system your operators have to learn.

What we build for automotive suppliers

Four high-leverage AI use cases we have shipped to Tier-1 and Tier-2 customers across Italy, France, Germany and Switzerland.

Predictive quality on the production line

Real-time anomaly detection on press, weld, paint or final-inspection lines. Catches the defect before it leaves the cell, with a human-in-the-loop confirmation step. PPM falls, scrap falls, OEM defect-cost recharges go down.

End-to-end batch traceability with AI search

When an OEM sends a quality alert on a serial number, the answer needs to be back in hours not days. We layer AI search and anomaly correlation across MES, QMS and supplier batch data so traceability queries that took two days take ten minutes.

Supplier-risk monitoring (Tier-3 + below)

Financial, geographic and delivery-performance risk signals across your raw-material and sub-component suppliers. The model surfaces the supplier likely to miss a Friday delivery on Wednesday, not after the line stops.

OEM audit pack: AI governance built in

Every AI implementation ships with the documentation OEM customer audits already ask for: data lineage, model decisions, human-in-the-loop checkpoints, EU AI Act role mapping. Built into the project so it is never a 90-day-before-audit panic.

How we work with IATF 16949

IATF 16949 is not optional in automotive supply, and AI does not get an exception. Every Corvalys deployment for a Tier-1 / Tier-2 supplier is designed around the clauses that actually matter when AI lands on the shop floor:

8.3 Design and development. AI models are treated as engineering deliverables: requirements, FMEA, validation, sign-off. Not "the data scientist trained a thing".
8.5.2 Identification and traceability. Model predictions are tied to the batch, line, operator and timestamp that produced them. So any later quality query can resolve back to evidence.
9.1 Monitoring and measurement. Drift, false-positive rate and operator-override rate are KPIs alongside PPM and OEE. Visible on the same dashboard as the rest of the line.
10.2 Nonconformity and corrective action. When the model is wrong, the 8D loop runs on the model the same way it runs on a tool: contain, root-cause, retrain, verify, document.

Typical engagement shape

Two to three weeks of assessment to pick the use case with the best effort-to-evidence ratio for your line. Four to eight weeks of pilot on a single line, single shift. Three to five months of rollout. Integrated with your existing MES, ERP and QMS. At which point the model is owned by your operations team with our retainer support.

Total time from kick-off to production-grade AI on a Tier-2 line: typically four to six months. EU AI Act documentation produced as a by-product of the project, not a retrofit.