Founded in 1991 as a joint venture with Ford and fully owned by Volkswagen since 1999, Volkswagen Autoeuropa is Portugal’s largest foreign industrial investment, contributing about 1,25% of GDP.

Aerial view of Volkswagen Autoeuropa facility

Location:

Palmela, Portugal
Production per day:

1,000 units
Employees:

4,800

Summary

Challenges

Limited visibility across the asset lifecycle.
High manual effort in warehouse, returns, and repairs.
Contract renewal risk and fragmented vendor controls.
Lacking KPI-driven governance and sustainable adoption.

Solution

Strengthen asset visibility with OpenText™ Asset Management’s standardized lifecycle workflows.
Establish inventory and stockroom governance with traceability.
Centralize contract and vendor controls with renewal discipline.
Enable configuration management foundations and reporting.

Results

Cost savings and strategic control
Asset visibility and audit readiness
Operational efficiency with high process adherence

Challenges

Fragmented tools obscured asset ownership, status, and location, reducing lifecycle control and traceability
High-volume operations lacked bulk actions and one-to-many fulfilment, driving manual work in returns and repairs
Inconsistent processes and limited auditability increased renewal risk and weakened vendor controls
A unified platform was required to standardize processes, govern with KPIs, and industrialize asset management at scale

Volkswagen Autoeuropa operates in a high-demand manufacturing environment where operational resilience, financial governance, and compliance rely on accurate, auditable control of IT assets—from procurement and warehousing to deployment, repair, and disposal.

But Volkswagen Autoeuropa lacked end-to-end lifecycle visibility and operational control of IT assets. Asset data and execution activities were spread across teams and tools, limiting the ability to track ownership, location, and status with the precision required for a manufacturing-critical environment.

Beyond tooling changes, success required disciplined process adherence to prevent workarounds and ensure auditability. Volkswagen Autoeuropa also needed to anchor sustainability through KPIs, actionable reporting, and continuous improvement routines.

The initiative surfaced scale requirements typical of industrial operations, including one-to-many fulfilment patterns (one request, multiple devices) and mass update capabilities to support high-volume asset operations.

Together, these drivers set the mandate for a unified platform that could industrialize asset governance while simplifying execution for end users and operational teams.

Training demonstrated added value, which improved perception leading to an adoption increase for most people.

Volkswagen Autoeuropa IT Team

Solution

Inoweiser, an OpenText partner, modernized Volkswagen Autoeuropa’s asset management operating model with OpenText Asset Management. This solution established a single source of truth for lifecycle decision-making—delivering the visibility, control, and governance needed to sustain adoption and continuous improvement.

Products deployed

OpenText™ Asset Management

Manage IT assets to reduce compliance risk and optimize IT costs

Sharpen visibility across the asset lifecycle

Working with Inoweiser, Volkswagen Autoeuropa defined and executed a governance-led transformation roadmap, building a structured, scalable foundation for lifecycle decisions with OpenText Asset Management on SaaS.

Deployed in just 7 months, OpenText Asset Management on SaaS delivered the complete visibility required to streamline inventory, warehouse, procurement, and repair workflows. The product supports llifecycle planning, inventory control, contract and vendor oversight, and mobility-driven execution for operational teams—all through standardized, auditable processes.

Inoweiser led the implementation and industrialization of the operating model—aligning stakeholders, defining repeatable workflows, and establishing the governance routines required for sustainable adoption—while providing process design, disciplined data migration, and execution coaching to de-risk the program and ensure delivery success.

Governance-led rollout and industrialized migration

Inoweiser prioritized end-to-end process design and execution readiness—covering device returns with condition analysis, automated status and stock updates, RMA scheduling, notifications, and closure activities—to ensure lifecycle traceability. Inoweiser also validated end-to-end scenarios, coordinated stakeholders, and embedded quality gates to protect go-live integrity.

In parallel, Volkswagen Autoeuropa executed a structured data program—43,000 assets reviewed, 20,000 migrated—supported by 4,171 tests and 976 stockroom positions. Physical governance was reinforced with 1,952 labels placed and 631 boxes acquired for warehouse standardization.

To drive organizational adoption and autonomy, the program included 160 training hours, process documentation, and operational coaching across 97 involved stakeholders (Volkswagen Autoeuropa, partners, and developers).

“Training demonstrated added value, which improved perception leading to an adoption increase for most people,” said the Volkswagen Autoeuropa IT team during an internal transformation workshop.

“We structured the rollout around governance and repeatability, ensuring Volkswagen Autoeuropa achieved lifecycle traceability without heavy customization,” said Fernando Costa, Inoweiser director. “This created a scalable foundation for continuous improvement and reporting.”

A person working on car manufacturing unit

Excellent process adherence for those that have been implemented so far—4,000 requests and 17,000 tasks in 9 months.

Volkswagen Autoeuropa IT Team

Results

Volkswagen Autoeuropa improved financial governance and operational control with disciplined, end-to-end asset lifecycle processes and a single source of truth for asset, inventory, and contract controls—enabled by Inoweiser’s governance-led model.

Cost savings and strategic control

By improving lifecycle visibility and renewal discipline, Volkswagen Autoeuropa reduced avoidable costs associated with unnecessary purchases, rentals, and contract auto-renewals. Enhanced planning alignment between IT and Finance improved budget forecasting and procurement decision quality.

Asset visibility and audit readiness

Volkswagen Autoeuropa established centralized visibility across hardware assets, including location, ownership, and status. This strengthened compliance readiness, simplified audits and reporting, and reduced exposure to unauthorized or outdated assets through improved lifecycle tracking.

Operational efficiency with high process adherence

Standardized warehouse, return, and repair workflows reduced manual tasks and improved execution consistency. Early adoption evidence was strong. Volkswagen Autoeuropa IT reported “excellent process adherence (no bypass) for those that have been implemented so far—474 requests and 1675 tasks in 2 weeks.”

With dashboards and KPI reporting under development, Volkswagen Autoeuropa is positioned to institutionalize continuous improvement, linking asset lifecycle intelligence to operational resilience and financial outcomes.

Inoweiser remains a strategic partner in Volkswagen Autoeuropa’s continuous improvement roadmap, supporting KPI institutionalization, reporting evolution, and the progressive expansion of lifecycle and configuration capabilities.

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