Small Parts Big Impact: Inside the Automotive supply chain

In automotive manufacturing, the smallest components can wield massive power. A contaminated seal can compromise an entire electric motor. From caps and plugs to clamps, seals, and sleeves, seemingly standard parts can determine whether automotive manufacturing succeeds or fails.

Karl Vieira, Essentra Components' Key Account Manager for Automotive, has spent a decade working across the components supply chain, supporting industry leading tier suppliers and OEMs. His perspective reveals how the industry's smallest parts are grappling with big challenges. In an interconnected system, failure at any point – no matter how small – can cascade throughout an entire operation.

"We're doing everything within our power to make sure we don't cause any disruption," Vieira explains. "As simple as our parts are, manufacturers still can't build without them."
 

Supply Chain as Strategic Advantage

The financial stakes of component reliability have never been higher, and this reality is reshaping how companies think about supply chain management. Supply chain reliability has become a strategic imperative rather than operational concern, with their parts suppliers needing to be highly trusted and reliable.

"Logistically, disruptions can take up a lot of time, but stopping a production line is not really an option," Vieira emphasises. “Essentra Components’ UK business is always in conversation with colleagues in different countries, but we are all working for the same goal of ensuring we don't stop customers' production lines.”

To prevent disruption, companies are maintaining buffer stock on long-lead products and coordinating globally to ensure continuous supply, treating supply chain resilience as a competitive weapon.

However, automotive manufacturers face a persistent challenge: finding suppliers for the middle market. When orders are too small for large-scale suppliers but too complex for simple commodity providers, companies face a gap that can limit their design flexibility and product differentiation options.

"The major players in automotive are very large companies focused on high-volume parts. For smaller orders, you need to get more creative with production methods," Vieira explains. "There are projects the big suppliers aren't particularly interested in because they have higher thresholds for accepting custom work."

The EV Shift

While automotive headlines focus on battery breakthroughs and autonomous systems, the transition from internal combustion engines (ICEs) to electric vehicles (EVs) has revealed something simpler about component manufacturing. The fundamentals haven't changed as dramatically as many expected, but the details have become exponentially more demanding.

"The primary differences from ICEs to EVs include stricter requirements around particulate protection," Vieira notes. 

This seemingly small shift represents a significant evolution in manufacturing precision and quality control. 

"One of the main differences is we're asked to measure the size of the dirt particles present on the caps and plugs. EV manufacturers have strict restrictions on the size of metallic particles that can be present, which is pretty rare for Essentra because we're moulding plastic. There is a maximum size of non-metallic particles as well, so contamination control becomes critical in EV motors," Vieira explains.

This microscopic attention to contamination control reflects a broader trend in manufacturing: as systems become more sophisticated, tolerance for imperfection decreases. Electric motors, with their precise electromagnetic requirements, cannot accommodate the particle contamination levels that traditional engines might.

But the EV transition has also introduced entirely new performance challenges that weren't anticipated in traditional automotive applications. Components that performed adequately in ICE environments face different requirements in electric powertrains.

"We're being asked more about the performance of materials when they're subjected to certain fluids because components may be suspended in oil in electric motors, so manufacturers need to understand the effects of plastics in dielectric fluids," Vieira explains.
This has led to a more sophisticated approach to specification development. 

"Manufacturers will assign specifications with numbers that refer to the temperature of fluids components will be subjected to. However, automotive companies often specify standards that are higher than parts will actually encounter, just to ensure compatibility if components find use in other applications," Vieira says.

This over-specification strategy reveals how manufacturers are building flexibility into their component ecosystems, anticipating future applications and use cases that may not yet exist. 
 

From Inspection to Prevention

Modern manufacturing has evolved from inspection-based to intelligence-based quality management. Standards like IATF 16949 and Production Part Approval Processes (PPAP) require extensive upfront planning and documentation to ensure consistent quality from the very first part produced.

"It's all looked at under a microscope in the automotive industry and we have relatively tight tolerances on some parts we produce, so the challenges happen upfront," Vieira notes. "Once we've proven we can consistently produce each part to specification, the machine settings are locked in and production runs smoothly."

Focusing on upfront process control shows how the best manufacturers build quality into their processes from the start, rather than having to catch problems once parts are being made.

The desire for sustainable practices is challenging well established manufacturing processes. However, the shift from hydraulic to electric injection moulding isn't just about energy savings – it's about achieving the precision required for next-generation applications while building sustainability into the manufacturing process itself.

We now have electric presses in production that were previously hydraulic. These give us better control and significantly improved energy efficiency," Vieira explains. "We've implemented multiple energy-saving measures on our machines, including thermal jackets on components to retain heat and reduce energy consumption."

How Small Changes Create Big Impact

The EV transition has highlighted something that extends far beyond electrification: the power of cumulative improvement.

The push for vehicle efficiency has created new opportunities for component innovation, particularly in weight reduction. This isn't just about using lighter materials – it's about rethinking how components contribute to overall vehicle performance.

"There's a definite focus on weight saving," Vieira observes. “We've worked on projects trying to replace metal parts with plastic – some of these are very demanding applications where it doesn't always work. But in other cases, switching from metal to plastic components creates real weight benefits, particularly when the same component is used multiple times throughout a vehicle."

When a vehicle uses 30 or 40 identical fasteners, for example, saving 10 grams per piece creates meaningful weight reduction across the entire vehicle.

The same compound-effect thinking is reshaping how the industry approaches sustainability. Environmental commitments are driving material science and manufacturing processes in ways that extend far beyond regulatory compliance. Ford's target of 20% recycled and renewable plastics in new vehicles from 2025, advancing toward 100% recycled materials by 2035, shows how sustainability goals are becoming innovation catalysts.

"Automotive companies are now working with material manufacturers to specialise in recycled materials which weren't really considered by the industry ten years ago," Vieira says. 

"Now, we can satisfy OEM targets by using fully recycled nylon, for example. The parts we sell are very small, but over an entire vehicle that's a definite benefit."

This evolution shows how sustainability requirements are forcing suppliers to innovate in materials science, often leading to solutions that are both environmentally superior and performance-enhanced. The key insight is that small parts, when multiplied across an entire vehicle, can drive meaningful environmental impact.

The Lessons Beyond Automotive

Automotive component manufacturing trends extend far beyond the automotive sector. Sustainability requirements, precision demands, and supply chain complexity are creating new competitive dynamics across industries.

Karl Vieira's decades of experience shows that success requires fundamental capabilities: material science expertise, manufacturing flexibility, global supply chain coordination, and the ability to innovate within tight constraints. Companies that master this complexity while maintaining cost competitiveness will find opportunities across sectors undergoing similar transformations.