The automotive industry is certainly no stranger to navigating supply-chain risk and unforeseen disruption. Years of trusted partnerships and collaboration along the entire supply chain have led to principles such as just-in-time manufacturing, designed to reduce supply chain cost and improve productivity and response time.
Another joint initiative came in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. When production came to a complete standstill, manufacturers and suppliers worked together to define a code of business conduct.
But today’s challenges have put the industry in uncharted waters. The current factors affecting the industry are converging to impact the ecosystem, and consequently, how companies work together to create a supply chain that is more responsive to changing market dynamics and to better support alternatively powered vehicles, and other service-related business.
These new ways of working deserve collaboration with a long view. More than ever, dialogue is needed.
We are leaving behind decades of relative stability, which enabled an integrated supply chain, for a situation that brings high volatility, inflation and compromised models of sourcing, deliveries and planning. What we need now is a partnership approach to sustain the mobility ecosystem, making it fit for purpose also in the future.
Such an approach should exclude behaviors that insulate only one part of the chain against any cost increases that hit our economies and societies alike. By extension, contractual relations cannot be subject to change without room for negotiation prior to implementation. Such an attitude, in effect, turns a cold shoulder to impacts reverberating throughout an already stressed supply chain.
