Does any OEM require a specific capacity software or portal?

Mercedes-Benz names its SMB portal modules BKM and BBM for capacity and for shortfall communication. Stellantis names GST, Amadeus/SQP and its other systems for performance data. Neither names a system you must run inside your own plant to produce the figures. IVECO asks for evidence of maintained capacity without specifying the tool. The requirement is a defensible number, not a particular vendor.

We run shared lines. What exactly has to be shown?

IVECO clause 17 covers dedicated and non-dedicated lines, so the capacity evidence has to exist for shared equipment too. In practice that means actual utilisation per shared asset broken down by part number over a stated period, plus the loading plan showing how the remaining hours are allocated. The Plastic Omnium CAR manual treats total allocation above 90% as a warning sign, which is a useful internal threshold whatever your customer asks.

How long does a run-at-rate have to be?

It depends on the customer, and the customer's own document is the only answer that counts. The published range runs from a minimum of two hours at the final location with final resources, in Ficosa's supplier quality manual, to a full shift in practitioner accounts. The two-day German trial often quoted as 2TP comes from consultancy sources, not from an OEM document we could open.

Our capacity figure came out above 100% OEE. Is that possible?

No. The Plastic Omnium CAR manual flags it as an automatic red. It means the declared cycle time and the counted output contradict each other: either the ideal cycle time is slower than the line actually runs, or parts are being counted that the time window cannot contain. Fix the cycle time against the observed distribution before submitting anything.

Does a capacity claim have to be re-proved during serial production?

Mercedes requires current delivery capacity to be kept up to date in the portal, so yes in substance. IVECO asks for evidence of maintaining required capacity, which is a present-tense obligation. For Stellantis, secondary sources describe the Capacity Assessment Tool being re-run during serial life whenever process, equipment or location changes; confirm the current rule with your Stellantis contact, because the CSR itself does not carry the method.

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Compliance · OEM capacity requirements · status 22 September 2026

OEM capacity evidence: capacity is a standing, portal-reported obligation

For plant managers, logistics managers and supplier-quality leads at European automotive suppliers. What four openly published OEM requirement sets actually ask for on capacity, what record supports a capacity claim, and where a spreadsheet figure breaks down.

In shortCapacity is not a launch document. Mercedes-Benz requires normal, maximum and current delivery capacity in its SMB portal, kept promptly, plausibly and completely. IVECO requires evidence of maintaining required capacity on dedicated and shared lines. Volvo requires a plant capacity assessment before an RFP is answered. What satisfies all three is a demonstrated rate measured on the line, not a figure rebuilt afterwards in a spreadsheet.

What this is based onThe OEM documents named here are published openly, most of them through the IATF Global Oversight customer-specific requirements library. They are copyrighted; nothing below is reproduced, only paraphrased, and the current version on the customer's own portal prevails. Where a requirement sits behind a supplier login and could not be read, this page says so rather than guessing.

Capacity is a standing obligation, not a launch document

Most suppliers treat capacity as a PPAP artefact: a run-at-rate at launch, a signed capacity sheet, then silence until the next change. Three of the openly published European customer-specific requirement sets do not read that way. They ask for capacity to be maintained, reported and re-proved through serial life, and they name the portal it goes into.

Capacity duties in openly published European OEM requirement documents (versions listed on the IATF library, 22 September 2026)
Customer	Document	What it asks for on capacity	Where it lands
Mercedes-Benz	Mercedes-Benz Special Terms, document ALD00001238, edition 2019-11	Normal capacity, maximum capacity and current delivery capacity entered for specified periods; changes mapped promptly, plausibly and completely; shortfalls communicated with concrete alternatives	SMB supplier portal, module BKM (demand and capacity management); shortfalls in module BBM (demand and inventory management)
IVECO Group	CSR for IATF 16949, revision 01, 24 November 2025	Clause 17, against IATF 7.1.3.1: evidence of maintaining the productive capacity IVECO requires, for dedicated and for non-dedicated (shared) production lines	Supplier evidence on request; performance indicators tracked in IVECO SQP
Volvo Group	CSR, version 2, 28 February 2025	Clause 8.2.3.1.3: manufacturing feasibility before responding to any RFP, including a plant capacity assessment	Feasibility record held by the supplier; scorecard screenshot sent to the IATF certification body before the audit
Stellantis	CSR for use with IATF 16949, version 1, June 2025 (effective July 2025)	The CSR carries Cp and Cpk targets on the Product/Process Information Sheet and a named escalation ladder; the capacity method itself sits in the Capacity Assessment Tool, outside the CSR	GST, Amadeus/SQP and the other named Stellantis systems

Source: IATF Global Oversight CSR library and the Mercedes-Benz DocMaster public portal, both read 22 September 2026.

Read the four rows together and the pattern is one obligation in four shapes: the customer wants a capacity number that is current, that it can compare with what you are actually shipping, and that you can explain.

Mercedes-Benz: the figure lives in the portal, and it has to be plausible

The Mercedes-Benz IATF customer-specific requirements document is thin and mostly points elsewhere. The substance for capacity is in the openly published Mercedes-Benz Special Terms. What that document asks of a production partner:

Three capacity figures, not one. Normal capacity, maximum capacity and current delivery capacity, for the periods specified, entered into the SMB portal module BKM.
Changes mapped promptly, plausibly and completely. Those three words are the requirement. Promptly is a timing test, completely is a coverage test, and plausibly is an evidence test.
Shortfalls go into BBM with alternatives. If quantities or dates cannot be met, the partner communicates that in the demand and inventory management module together with concrete alternatives. A warning without an alternative is not the deliverable.
Delivery days are arrival dates at Mercedes goods receiving, not dispatch dates from your yard. Schedule adherence is measured on the customer's clock.
Records retained per VDA Volume 1 retention periods.

The word to plan around"Plausibly" is the one that decides what you need to keep. A capacity figure is plausible when the availability, the rate and the quality yield that produce it can be shown for the same line and the same period. It stops being plausible the moment the declared number and the shipped quantity move in different directions with no recorded reason.

One caveat on editions. The DocMaster public portal also lists a Mercedes-Benz Special Terms 2025 edition (document ALD00002454, edition 2025-04) that we did not read. The clauses above come from the 2019-11 edition of ALD00001238. Check the edition that applies to your contract before you build a process on this.

IVECO, Volvo, Stellantis: three more shapes of the same duty

IVECO clause 17 covers shared lines explicitly. If a press makes parts for three customers, the capacity you declare to IVECO is what is left after the other two, and you have to show the split. Clause 15 adds a separate duty: notify your certification body within five working days of being placed on Controlled Shipment Level 2 or Level 3.
Volvo puts the capacity assessment before the quotation. Manufacturing feasibility including a plant capacity assessment is required before answering an RFP, which reverses the usual order. Volvo also runs a three-stage Low Performing Supplier process triggered by negative performance trends, and requires a screenshot of the online supplier scorecard to go to the IATF certification body ahead of the audit.
Stellantis names the ladder. Warning letter, escalation level 1, escalation level 2, New Business Hold, written into the CSR at 9.1.2.1, so the consequence of missing schedule is defined in advance. Stellantis also requires dimensional reports as structured, digitised data, which is an explicit signal that a scan is not the deliverable.

The Stellantis capacity method itself, the Capacity Assessment Tool, is not in the CSR. What we found describing it is a training provider's undated course description, which puts CAT inside the APQP and PPAP flow and has it re-run during run-at-rate, during development and in serial life whenever process, equipment or location changes. Treat that as secondary. Ask your Stellantis supplier-quality contact for the current CAT instruction.

What evidence satisfies a capacity claim

The clearest open specification of the method is a Tier-1 manual rather than an OEM one: the Plastic Omnium Lighting Capacity Analysis Report manual, document LSM-SCM-403 revision 05, 8 November 2022. Its pass condition is a single comparison.

The pass conditionDemonstrated OEE must be at least the required OEE. Required OEE is derived backwards from customer demand, grossed up for downstream scrap, against the maximum parts theoretically possible in the net available time. Demonstrated OEE is availability multiplied by performance efficiency multiplied by quality rate, measured on the run. For the definitions themselves, see manufacturing-metrics.org.

That comparison only works if you have real numbers for the inputs. The CAR manual lists them: net ideal cycle time in seconds per part, scrap rate per process, in-line rework rate, changeover time and frequency, net available time after planned downtime, observed unplanned downtime, and the shift and day pattern. It also asks for a historical manufacturing performance sheet carrying 25 data points representing 25 weeks of production, to establish an average-OEE baseline, and a shared loading plan for shared equipment, with total allocation above 90% treated as a yellow flag.

Capacity claim to supporting record
The claim you make	The record that supports it	What gets challenged
"This line runs at X parts per hour"	Counted output for a stated window with start and end timestamps, against the declared net ideal cycle time	A cycle time taken from the machine datasheet rather than from the observed distribution
"Availability is Y%"	Every stop with start, end and cause code, captured at the machine during the run	Short stops that were never recorded, so availability is overstated and the gap shows up as an impossible performance figure
"Maximum capacity is Z per week"	Shift pattern, planned downtime, changeover count and duration for the same period, plus the demonstrated rate	Maximum capacity computed at 100% availability, which no line achieves
"We have capacity for your volume on a shared line"	Actual utilisation per shared asset by part number over the period, and the loading plan	Three customers each told they have the same press hours

How long the demonstration has to be

Durations are customer-specific and the customer's own document is the only answer that counts. The published range is consistent in direction: hours to shifts, not minutes. Ficosa's Supplier Quality Manual (edition 6, 20 February 2026) requires the trial at the final manufacturing location with final resources, a minimum of two hours, demonstrating parts per hour, machine downtime, scrap levels, parts flow, material feed and in-process checks at actual production speed. Practitioner accounts describe a timed run at target cycle time with production tooling and staffing, typically a full shift, with demonstrated rate as net good parts divided by run duration over target cycle time; downtime, scrap and rework reduce the numerator and are not added back. Anything that makes the run unrepresentative invalidates it: an engineer standing at the machine, hand-picked material, extra staff. The German two-day trial often written as 2TP is asserted by consultancy sources, not by any OEM document we opened, so do not plan two days because a blog said two days.

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Why a number reconstructed from a spreadsheet fails

Not because spreadsheets are bad. Because a reconstructed capacity figure has a signature, and reviewers know it.

The arithmetic contradicts itself. The CAR manual treats a demonstrated OEE above 100% as an automatic red flag. That is what you get when the declared cycle time and the counted output do not match.
Stops are missing. Micro-stops nobody writes down inflate availability, performance absorbs the difference, and neither factor tells you anything any more.
The time window is vague. A capacity figure with no stated start and end cannot be tied to a shift pattern, a product mix or an equipment state, so it cannot be reproduced.
Nobody can answer the second question. Certification bodies report the same pattern across quality systems: the record exists, but there is no concrete case behind it. A capacity figure is a claim, and the follow-up is always what it was measured on.
The manual run-at-rate drifts too. Hand collection of demonstrated rate, downtime, scrap and good-part counts during the run is still common, and it creates accuracy gaps at the moment the number matters most.

What we could not verify, and are not going to assert

Volkswagen Formel Q capacity analysis. The openly available Formel Q Capability, 9th edition, December 2022, contains no capacity, run-at-rate or capability clause; it routes process audits to VDA 6.3 elements P5 to P7, product audits to VDA 6.5, and escalation to the Critical Suppliers programme. The capacity method sits in Formel Q New Parts Integral, which is not published openly. Not verified.
BMW logistics and capacity requirements. The BMW CSR is deliberately short and carries no capacity, run-at-rate, process-capability or escalation clause. The operational logistics requirements sit behind the b2b.bmw.com login. Not verified.
Scania and CNH Industrial. Neither publishes a CSR on the IATF library; Scania's standards are login-only. Not verified.
SupplyOn as an OEM capacity channel. Its capacity assessment page names no OEM customers and lists no required data fields. Any claim that a named OEM collects capacity through SupplyOn needs separate verification.
Stellantis CAT mechanics, as above: a training provider's undated course description.

Building a capacity file that survives the question

Fix the boundaryOne line or cell, named, with the part numbers it makes and the equipment it shares. Shared assets get a loading plan from the start, because IVECO clause 17 asks for shared lines by name.
Record the run, do not reconstruct itCounts, stops with cause codes and changeovers timed as they happen. The demonstration window and the evidence window have to be the same window.
Keep a rolling history, not a single trialThe CAR manual's 25 weeks is a reasonable target for any customer. A rolling weekly rate and OEE series answers the capacity question on the day it is asked, instead of triggering a special run.
Reconcile to what shippedDeclared capacity against produced quantity against delivered quantity, per period, with a recorded reason for any divergence. This is what makes a portal figure plausible rather than merely present.
Re-prove on changeProcess, equipment or location change resets the demonstration. Date the new run after the change and retire the old sheet rather than editing it.

You can do the first three steps with a clipboard and a spreadsheet, and many plants should start there: it costs nothing and it tells you whether your cycle times are real. What breaks is the fourth step, once several lines and several customers are involved and the reconciliation has to happen every week. At that point plants move to automatic counting, whether through the MES they already own, an integrator's data layer, or a dedicated monitoring system. These sites are published by TEEPTRAK SAS, which sells production-monitoring and OEE software, so treat that last option as an interested recommendation and compare it against what your MES already records.

Questions

Does any OEM require a specific capacity software or portal?: Mercedes-Benz names its SMB portal modules BKM and BBM for capacity and for shortfall communication. Stellantis names GST, Amadeus/SQP and its other systems for performance data. Neither names a system you must run inside your own plant to produce the figures. IVECO asks for evidence of maintained capacity without specifying the tool. The requirement is a defensible number, not a particular vendor.
We run shared lines. What exactly has to be shown?: IVECO clause 17 covers dedicated and non-dedicated lines, so the capacity evidence has to exist for shared equipment too. In practice that means actual utilisation per shared asset broken down by part number over a stated period, plus the loading plan showing how the remaining hours are allocated. The Plastic Omnium CAR manual treats total allocation above 90% as a warning sign, which is a useful internal threshold whatever your customer asks.
How long does a run-at-rate have to be?: It depends on the customer, and the customer's own document is the only answer that counts. The published range runs from a minimum of two hours at the final location with final resources, in Ficosa's supplier quality manual, to a full shift in practitioner accounts. The two-day German trial often quoted as 2TP comes from consultancy sources, not from an OEM document we could open.
Our capacity figure came out above 100% OEE. Is that possible?: No. The Plastic Omnium CAR manual flags it as an automatic red. It means the declared cycle time and the counted output contradict each other: either the ideal cycle time is slower than the line actually runs, or parts are being counted that the time window cannot contain. Fix the cycle time against the observed distribution before submitting anything.
Does a capacity claim have to be re-proved during serial production?: Mercedes requires current delivery capacity to be kept up to date in the portal, so yes in substance. IVECO asks for evidence of maintaining required capacity, which is a present-tense obligation. For Stellantis, secondary sources describe the Capacity Assessment Tool being re-run during serial life whenever process, equipment or location changes; confirm the current rule with your Stellantis contact, because the CSR itself does not carry the method.

Sources

Published by TEEPTRAK SAS, which makes production-monitoring and OEE software. Every figure is sourced on the page. Funding rules, standards and reporting duties change: check the official documents before you budget or commit.