Neaton Auto Products Manufacturing (NAPM) improved quality control and reduced search time by 70% with CADDi AI data platform
New case study analyzes how Tier-1 automotive supplier advances AI adoption by unifying four decades of data across engineering, procurement and quality control
Pictured from left are CADDi’s Sarah Perry and Milbien Medina; members of the Neaton team, including Vice President of Design Engineering Naomi Noda; and CADDi’s Jinshou Li. Photo taken during a CADDi team visit to Neaton’s U.S. headquarters in Eaton, Ohio, in April 2026. Photo credit: CADDi
CHICAGO, Ill. – CADDi, the global technology company developing an AI data platform for manufacturers, today announced a new case study analyzing cost control and efficiency gains for Neaton Auto Products Manufacturing (NAPM). The case study explores how Tier-1 automotive supplier NAPM applied CADDi to centralize critical design knowledge and enable faster engineering workflows and quality investigation.
Transforming 140,000 Assets into Unified Manufacturing Intelligence across Departments
Manufacturing is heading into another significant era of transformation. According to Naomi Noda, Vice President of Design Engineering at NAPM, "In manufacturing, we have already gone through digitalization. Now, companies are shifting toward AI implementation. To make AI effective, digital assets need to be unified. Development, production, quality and shipping—digital unification is about linking all of those departments into one central system so the data can be fully utilized. Companies that are successful in this area have systems that link information together so AI can use that data. That allows them to identify errors in a timely manner and make faster decisions." CADDi platform user adoption increased from an initial 30 users to 85 active accounts as usage of CADDi spread, reflecting a 183% increase as usage expanded across teams.
Before partnering with CADDi, critical engineering knowledge was distributed across multiple shared drives and complex folder hierarchies. Locating the correct specifications, confirming the latest revisions, and coordinating across teams required manual navigation that slowed down daily operations. NAPM loaded over 140,000 documents into a unified CADDi platform, consolidating information across PLM, ERP systems, and scanned documents, including handwritten notes that were previously difficult to search and reuse. This created a foundation for manufacturing intelligence across engineering, quality, and procurement. Specifically, by consolidating drawings and related documents into a unified platform, NAPM engineers estimate they have reduced drawing search time by 40% to 70%. Hours previously spent navigating folders are now redirected to higher-value design and validation work.
Quality Control members can now access drawings, Design Notes, and QA sheets from one place and move directly into root cause analysis without spending time gathering information across systems. Beth Crose, NAPM Quality Control Manager shares, "For QA-related searches, we reduced the time from about 3 minutes and 17 seconds down to 1 minute and 30 seconds. That's a savings of 1 minute and 47 seconds, or about 50% faster. This time reduction reflects closely what my team experiences as well. We are actually using drawings more now because they are easier to access. Previously, the effort required to find information limited how often people used it. Now that barrier is gone."
Prioritized Procurement Efficiency and Quoting Workflow Structure
Building on the successful deployment of CADDi Drawer, NAPM is exploring opportunities to further improve quoting efficiency and cost visibility using CADDi Quote, CADDi's procurement platform. By connecting engineering drawings with quoting and procurement information, NAPM aims to support more efficient and consistent quotation workflows in the next phase of its digital transformation.
Naomi Noda emphasized, "The main reason we chose to partner with CADDi was to improve procurement capability—that was the original objective. The main question with procurement is always how cheaply we can purchase components, since that directly affects profitability and what we can offer to customers. That is an ongoing challenge for the procurement department." NAPM procurement teams were limited in their ability to validate supplier quotes against historical parts and pricing, which affected how effectively they could evaluate cost and negotiate with suppliers. This limited the time available for higher-value activities such as evaluating quotations and making strategic sourcing decisions.
Naomi Noda continues, "With CADDi, we can pull together a lot of information from one place. For procurement data specifically, we are trying to create a cost table based on information in Drawer. We can look at similar past parts and generate a cost reference. When we receive a quote, we can compare it and evaluate whether the pricing is appropriate. If a quote is higher, we can use that information to negotiate with suppliers and ask why it is more expensive." By introducing CADDi Quote, NAPM aims to minimize these manual efforts while structuring historical part and cost information into reusable, searchable data tables. This enables procurement teams to focus more on quotation analysis and supplier strategy rather than administrative work.
Looking ahead, NAPM plans to expand the scope of suppliers and parts data in CADDi, with the goal of reducing procurement workload and enabling more strategic sourcing activities. Read the full case study "Strengthening Design-Driven Engineering Operations at Neaton" at: us.caddi.com/case-studies/neaton.
About CADDi
CADDi is an AI powered data platform that makes design and supply chain data accessible and actionable for manufacturing teams. Headquartered in Tokyo and Chicago, the company was founded in 2017 by industry veterans Yushiro Kato and Aki Kobashi, formerly of McKinsey and Apple. Its flagship product, CADDi Drawer, uses advanced AI to centralize and analyze unstructured design and production data, helping manufacturers improve efficiency, reduce redundancies, and unlock innovation. Recognized globally for innovation, CADDi was listed in Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies and won the SaaS Award for Best Business Intelligence and Engineering Management Software. To learn more or to book a product demonstration, visit us.caddi.com.
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Milbien Medina
Senior Manager, Brand Marketing
CADDi USA