Unplanned software reflashes are now a common headache for OEMs and suppliers during production. Most occur with little notice, leaving teams scrambling to respond.
Yet despite knowing these situations are likely, most organizations don’t include reflash campaigns in their schedules or budgets. The result is predictable: delays, added costs, and more disruption when reflashes inevitably arise.
Movimento’s Reflash Preparedness Campaigns offer a solution. By shortening response time and increasing daily reflash capacity, they help reduce costs and keep production on track.
The cost of delay
In many cases, the main challenge with reflashing isn’t the task itself; it’s the delay between identifying the need and being ready to begin the campaign.
OEMs feel this most when vehicles begin to accumulate in plant lots, prevented from shipping out by outdated software. This delays revenue, adds storage costs, clogs distribution channels, and risks reputational damage from missed delivery windows.
For suppliers, reflash delays can threaten contractual deadlines or shut down production lines entirely, creating significant financial consequences.
In some cases, reflashes are required for subassemblies like radar or lighting modules already integrated into larger systems. Disassembling these for access can be slow, expensive, and carries a risk of damaging other components.
A bad choice: pay the price or build with outdated software
Preparing for a reflash campaign takes time. Teams need to configure hardware, script software, and pull engineers and technicians away from regular production. In many cases, it takes several days, or even weeks, before reflashing can even start after an issue is identified.
Traditionally, OEMs and suppliers have faced two options in these situations:
- Pause production to reflash the affected modules, absorbing the cost of downtime and disruption.
- Build with outdated software and plan to fix the problem later.
While building with outdated software keeps production moving in the short term, it often leads to higher reflash costs per vehicle, especially when modules are difficult to access after assembly or vehicles are spread across multiple lots, sometimes in multiple locations.
Now, there’s a better alternative.
A Movimento Reflash Preparedness Campaign allows OEMs and suppliers to avoid both extremes by reducing the time and cost of emergency reflashes without halting production.
Movimento’s Reflash Preparedness Campaigns explained
A Reflash Preparedness Campaign is a proactive service that helps OEMs and suppliers prepare for inevitable software reflashes without any upfront cost.
The process begins with Movimento working alongside customer engineering teams to identify high-risk modules. Movimento then pre-configures software scripts and assembles custom harnesses for its reflash hardware, typically the PUMA 6.
If one of those high-risk modules requires a reflash during production, Movimento can deploy technicians to site in under 24 hours. Because the software and hardware preparation is already complete, reflashing can begin almost immediately, eliminating the days or weeks of lead time usually required to launch a campaign.
Movimento campaigns are designed to achieve two main goals:
- Minimize the gap between identifying a reflash need and starting the campaign
- Maximize throughput using scalable methods like parallel reflashing
In addition to deployment readiness, Movimento provides advisory support for budgeting and cost forecasting, helping organizations plan ahead and avoid unexpected expenses.
Movimento does not charge for preparing in advance. If a reflash is required, the customer pays only the standard execution costs they would have incurred anyway.
Scaling daily reflash production with proprietary tools
One of Movimento’s key advantages is its ability to run high-volume reflash campaigns using parallel flashing techniques.
Unlike sequential flashing, which processes one module at a time, parallel execution allows multiple modules or vehicles to be updated simultaneously.
This significantly boosts daily reflash capacity, making it possible to complete large-scale campaigns faster and more efficiently than in-house operations can typically support.
Case study: 23 modules in one hour versus six
The impact of preparedness is best illustrated through a real-world example. In one situation, an OEM urgently needed to reflash 23 separate modules on each vehicle.
Using traditional sequential methods, their team estimated the process would take up to six hours per vehicle.
Thanks to its parallel reflashing capabilities, Movimento reduced the reflash time per vehicle to just one hour.
This five-hour savings per vehicle dramatically reduced the campaign’s overall duration and cost. Not only were more vehicles reflashed per day, but technician time, equipment usage, and operational downtime were all reduced.
In addition, Movimento’s Nuvolo Cloud platform ensured 100% traceability and real-time production tracking, giving the OEM full visibility into campaign progress and results.
To read about other situations where parallel reflashing drastically improved efficiency and cut costs, see Movimento’s other case studies.
Zero-risk preparation, high-value protection
As vehicles rely more heavily on software, unexpected reflashes have become a near certainty for OEMs and suppliers. Many will encounter at least one major event each year, even under the best conditions.
Movimento’s Reflash Preparedness Campaigns provide a practical way to plan ahead. There is no upfront cost and no charge unless a reflash is needed. The customer pays only for the execution, just as they would without the advance preparation.
Without a plan in place, reflash events can lead to missed production targets, increased costs, and disrupted customer commitments.
With a plan, organizations can move quickly, stay on schedule, and control reflash-related expenses.
By preparing in advance, OEMs and suppliers can:
- Shorten the time between identifying an issue and solving it
- Reduce the cost per vehicle reflashed
- Avoid production delays and bottlenecks
- Scale operations as needed without internal strain
- Ensure readiness with minimal operational impact
To learn more or to develop a preparedness plan tailored to your production environment, contact us!