تجزیه و تحلیل تجربی مدیریت ریسک زنجیره تامین در صنعت خودرو آلمان

The purpose of this paper is the empirical analysis of supply chain risk management practices. The analysis is based on a survey with 67 manufacturing plants conducted in the German automotive industry. After investigating the vulnerability of supply chains in general and examining key drivers of supply chain risks, the paper identifies supply chain risks by analyzing their likelihood to occur and their potential impact on the supply chain. The results are visualized in the probability-impact-matrix distinguishing between internal and external supply chain risks. Furthermore, instruments for dealing with supply chain risks are investigated. Therefore, the impact of supply chain risk management on performance is tested. In order to distinguish between companies with a high degree of supply chain risk management and those with no or only limited implementation the plants are grouped by means of a cluster analysis based on factors reflecting the instruments of supply chain risk management. In particular, groups are created representing two different approaches to deal with supply chain risks, i.e. reactive and preventive supply chain risk management. The clusters are investigated concerning differences in terms of performance criteria. The analyses reveal that companies with a high implementation degree show a better supply chain performance. Furthermore, the results show that the group using reactive supply chain risk management has higher average value in terms of disruptions resilience or the reduction of the bullwhip effect, whereas the group pursuing preventive supply chain risk management has better values concerning flexibility or safety stocks.

In a business environment characterized by high complexity and uncertainty, manufacturing companies are forced to manage their supply chains effectively in order to increase efficiency and reactivity. Catastrophes such as 9/11, hurricane Katrina, or the Tsunami in 2004 have raised the attention on this issue. But also everyday problems such as supplier losses or quality problems make supply chain risk management important. It aims at mitigating the negative impact of external disturbances and tries to manage certain risks within supply chains. Especially the automotive industry is well known for their efforts to improve its supply chains according to their demanding business environment. Since the 1990s, a focus of managing supply chains lies in the improvement of cost-efficiency (Lee, 2004). Companies furthermore try to meet the requirements of competition through the intensive implementation of concepts streamlining supply chain processes (Childerhouse et al., 2003). This, for example, is incorporated in the automotive industry through widely used concepts such as just-in-time and just-in-sequence in order to create lean supply chains (Svensson, 2004; Thun et al., 2007). The trend towards lean supply chains results in low inventories achieved by close collaboration with customers and suppliers on the one hand, but leads to high vulnerability on the other hand since turbulences in the supply chain can barely be compensated without safety stocks. Another reason for increasing supply chain risks is the trend towards outsourcing due to the fact that additional dependencies are created and the complexity in the network rises (Jüttner et al., 2003). The more complex a network is, the more interfaces do exist and the higher the vulnerability will be (Peck, 2005). In a similar way, globalization increases supply chain risks (Berry, 2004) because aspects such as transportation risks, cultural risks or exchange rate risks gain importance. Numerous articles address the effects of external events on supply chains and the companies involved (e.g. Chopra and Sodhi, 2004). Especially, catastrophes and their consequences have augmented the attention to risk in supply chains within the last years. For example, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Ford and Toyota had to stop their production in their manufacturing plants in the US due to significant delays in delivery of parts coming from foreign countries (Sheffi, 2001). Other examples are delayed deliveries due to quality problems or a complete loss of a supplier caused by its insolvency. In December 2001, Land Rover had to worry about the production of its key model Discovery since its only supplier for Chassis, UPF-Thompson, filed for bankruptcy (Sheffi and Rice, 2005). Only by a high expense of goodwill, Land Rover could avert a nine-month disruption of production as well as the loss of 1500 jobs. Another demonstrative example for damage amounting to millions of dollars is the case of the German components supplier Robert Bosch who delivered its customers with defective high-pressure pumps for diesel fuel injection systems in the beginning of 2005. However, a sub-supplier of Bosch was accountable for this mistake and, hence, the entire supply chain was affected. These examples show that new risks emerge from the dependency and integration of companies in the supply chain. But not only such dramatic incidents disrupt supply chains, also more ordinary and workaday problems might affect supply chains. Often, comparable disruption is provoked by risks related to customers and suppliers as well as infrastructure and network. A well known network risk is a phenomenon commonly referred to as the Bullwhip-effect which describes the amplification of inventory when moving up the value chain (Lee et al., 1997). Consequences of supply chain disruptions might be financial losses, a negative corporate image or a bad reputation eventually accompanied by a loss in demand as well as damages in security and health (Jüttner et al., 2003). In the light of these risks and their inherent consequences, it can be assumed that the performance of a supply chain will be affected negatively. Although, general statements regarding the financial losses of affected companies and industries involved in supply chain disruptions are neither possible nor reasonable, yet, some examples of companies exist that estimated their daily loss to $50–$100 million showing clearly the meaning of such negative incidents (Rice and Caniato, 2003). Altogether, the prevailing developments stress the need for the management of risks within a supply chain. Although supply chain risk management has gained attention in the past years in academia (Jüttner, 2005), there is a lack of work on this subject matter. There is a need for empirical work in the field of supply chain risk management analyzing the main supply chain risks and investigating instruments for an effective supply chain risk management. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the status quo of supply chain risk management in Germany based on a study conducted in the automotive industry. In particular, the purpose is to investigate the relevance of different risks in terms of their probability of occurrence and their potential impact on the supply chain. Furthermore, several instruments of supply chain risk management are analyzed regarding their potential to cope with supply chain risks. Hence, the relationship between the implementation of these instruments and different performance criteria is analyzed.

The empirical analysis reveals that supply chains are predominantly regarded as being vulnerable. A reason might be the rather low implementation degree of the instruments of supply chain risk management which is in accordance to the literature (Jüttner, 2005; Tang, 2006). Furthermore, factors rising complexity such as globalization and product variants on the one hand, and factors increasing efficiency such as outsourcing or reduction of suppliers on the other hand are identified as key developments driving supply chain risks and therefore increasing supply chain vulnerability. Globalization fosters supply chain risk since the resulting dependencies might lead to risks on the demand side as well as on the supply side. Moreover, many product variants result in supply chain risks because they increase the uncertainty in a supply chain. In terms of efficiency outsourcing raises the amount of interfaces and the dependency between companies making the supply network more vulnerable. The reduction of the amount of supplier additionally can improve supplier relationships on the one hand, but leads to a dependency on the other hand. Beyond that the ongoing trend towards offshoring will also increase the vulnerability of supply chains, since supply relationships will be more complex and susceptible to faults due to cross-national connections. In addition to the drivers described above the resulting supply chain risks are investigated. The analysis shows that potential risks threatening supply chains are evaluated differently concerning their impact on the supply chain and their probability to occur. The results reveal that internal supply chain risks are regarded as being more likely to occur and that they would also have a greater impact on the supply chain. The latter result might be influenced by the fact that managers estimate the impact of incidents with a higher likelihood stronger since they implicitly reevaluate the impact based on its expectation value. However, the results indicate that most of the risks supply chains are confronted with arise from inside the supply chain. This indicates that managers are able to act on these risks directly. Additionally, the study reveals that supply chain risk management has the potential to improve supply chains in the automotive industry. A comparison of means shows that those companies having a low implementation degree of supply chain risk management instruments have lower average values in all of the investigated performance criteria such as resilience against external disruptions, reactivity improvement, or flexibility. Furthermore, a T-test shows that reactive instruments of supply chain risk management are less implemented than preventive instruments. A reason for this might be the fact that reactive instruments are cost intensive since they are primarily based on resource-binding redundancies such as safety stocks. In a further step, the companies are grouped by a cluster analysis separating the companies in groups pursuing reactive or preventive supply chain risk management. The group using preventive instruments shows higher values in terms of increased flexibility, decreased stocks, reactivity, and cost reduction. The group using reactive instruments shows higher average values concerning a reduction of the bullwhip effect and external disruptions resilience. These results reveal that reactive supply chain management is effective in terms of external impacts on the one hand, but leads to inefficiencies due to the redundancies on the other hand. Contrary to that, preventive supply chain risk management supports the creation of a resilient supply chain. As research limitations the following aspects should be mentioned. This study focuses on the automotive industry exclusively. Further research could transfer the ideas to other industries such as electronics or machinery in order to test general validity of the results. Additionally, an international survey would give interesting insights concerning the degree of implementation in other countries or could identify cultural differences with respect to supply chain risk management.