Resilience to Pandemics through Flexibility in Sourcing, in Order Fulfillment, and Production Capacity of the Automotive Supply Chain

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the automotive industry which is regarded as a best practice considering its supply chain has experienced new threats which render its supply chain vulnerable. For instance, the many lockdowns, associated with collapsing of global distribution channels sunk vehicle sales dramatically. The purpose of this study is to identify capabilities to strengthen the resilience of automotive supply chains to pandemics. By using the supply chain resilience framework developed by Sytch et al. [4] we analyze the resilience of the automotive supply chain with evidence from the literature to a pandemic crisis with vulnerability factors similar to those of COVID-19.
We do find evidence that seven out of ten capabilities we looked for are present in the automotive supply chain. Capabilities to improve are i.e., multiple sources for tier 1 suppliers, improving risk pooling/sharing, and defining means of production postponement.
With the evidence on resilience factors for pandemics, we provide managers with a set of factors to focus on in pandemics. Thus, our study helps managers to better prepare their supply chain to resist global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. We used a methodology that can be applied with more secondary and also primary sources and therefore is interesting for researchers.