Alta dirección: Artículo completo para Automotive Logistics 2020
A continuación publicamos el artículo que el Ing. Rafael López Márquez y el Dr. Héctor Debernardo escribieron para el evento Automotive Logistics & Supply Chain 2020.
COVID 19 impacted Supply Chains all over the World: How will they change in the near future? How will Technology be used in order to support operations?
COVID 19 tested the Supply Chain of all enterprises worldwide:
- Closing borders.
- Reducing people mobility.
- People in quarantine.
The Automotive Industry was not the exception. It was highly affected because of its degree of integration within different countries and continents.
Supply chains are always vulnerable to “Acts of God”, and some other conditions such as strikes and bottlenecks along the network, among others.
In 2009, H1N1 virus affected business operations: working traveling were reduced, catering services at the manufacturing facilities were eliminated to avoid large concentrations of people, some healthy measures were implemented to prevent people to work sick and continue spreading the virus.
However, there were no disruptions at Supply Chain level. It is the first time in our globalized economy that a disease causes such a deep impact worldwide.
Due to COVID19 pandemic, many manufacturing operations were shut down for a long period of time, between 6 to 8 weeks, and inventories were not enough to absorb that impact.
Supply Chains all around the world will definitely change toward ensuring a stronger and more resilient network and operations that could adapt to further challenges.
Currently, several dilemmas are evident. Experts are discussing on how to rebuild and to adapt Supply Chains:
- Should they be more local? Should they be segmented by region instead of being global?
- Nearshoring: Would production be localized near the consumers to make operations simpler and more resilient?
- Should supply chains be shorter and distribution channels more diverse?
- How could inventories be handled in order to improve response and to support operations?
- Are action plans to tackle contingencies going to change? Are these plans going to be designed and implemented by each company, or they would rather be organized nationally or even coordinated globally?
- Is it advisable to increase automation and digitalization in the logistic chain to be better prepared? How?
- How are the operators of the logistic chain prepared and learning to take advantage of this experience?
As you can see before, tough challenges are ahead of us and they will be certainly discussed by the experts. Regarding those coming discussions, too elements could be taken into account:
- What Automotive Industry made brilliantly in the past: Benchmarking. This industry adopts best practices developed by both Nuclear and Aeroespace Industries, such as quality assurance systems. Automotive Industry did it well, but maybe it was not wide enough. Maybe it is time to rigorously adopt Probabilistic Safety Analysis, where concepts such as redundancy and system reliability are key pillars.
- What Automotive Industry is going to experience in the near future: Simplicity. Electric vehicles and 3D printing could dramatically simplify supply chains.
When tough challenges are ahead of us, a back to basics usually is a great strategy.
El equipo de Puente Empresarial.
info@puenteempresarial.com