Supply chain resilience and industry 4.0: a evaluation of the Brazilian northeast automotive OEM scenario post COVID-19

Abstract

COVID-19 outbreak has heavily impacted the manufacturing industry, including Brazilian Automotive Industry. The effects of COVID-19 created restrictions in several industry processes as supply chain. On the other hand, several industry 4.0 technologies is able to support the industry supply chain activities in the COVID 19 scenarios, as well it may contributed for the automotive industry recovery and it will define the next steps of this industry. A supply chain is a network between a company and its suppliers to produce and distribute a specific product to the final buyer. Industry 4.0 is related to the technology development and the digitalization process that improve significantly productivity. Considering the automotive process, an important reference model is described in Advanced Product Quality Planning and Control Plan, that is a manual that communicate the guidelines of the product quality planning and control plan for internal and external suppliers. In this scenario, this paper evaluated the current situation and the future outlook for the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies in the automotive OEM post-pandemic scenario on the point of view of automotive specialists. The results of this research provide an overview of the current situation and the future outlook for the usage of Industry 4.0 technologies by the Brazilian Northeast automotive OEM, from the perspective of manufacturing engineering experts on APQP.

Impact of supply chain digitalization on supply chain resilience and performance: A multi-mediation model

“…Almost all global supply chains have encountered different levels of disruptions in operation, which have severely affected the production flow of companies ( Paul et al, 2021 ; Ivanov, 2020 ; El Baz and Ruel, 2021 ). Manufacturing industries, such as automobile, food, and pharmaceutical production, as well as service industries, such as airlines and hotels, have suffered from significant losses ( Belhadi et al, 2021b ; Rubbio et al, 2019 ; Soares et al, 2021 ). Take Toyota's domestic supplier, Kojima Press Industries, as an example.…”

Industry 4.0 in “Major Emerging Markets”: A Systematic Literature Review of Benefits, Use, Challenges, and Mitigation Strategies in Supply Chain Management

“…IoT RTLS and RFID had low use among Brazilian OEMs, but the deployment of RFID brings visibility and strategic capability to supply chains. More than 60 percent of experts interviewed were optimistic that within five years there will be widespread application in the Advanced Product Quality Planning and Control Plan (APQP) [49]. RFID provides efficient inventory management by providing a mechanism for checking outgoing and incoming goods against receipts.…”

“…This system is superior to human monitoring, which leads to the benefit of minimizing human errors while enhancing productivity and shelf life [61]. More than 60 percent of experts surveyed from the Brazilian automotive OEM reported that AI is expected to be heavily used within the next five years in all phases of APQP [49]. From a case analysis with Indian experts, it was evident that, among SMEs, analytics is the most convenient entry point for adopting Industry 4.0 in supply chains.…”

“…A survey of experts in Brazilian automotive manufacturing showed that more than 60 percent of experts were confident that cloud technologies will be important in APQP and have a high probability of use over the next five years [49]. The cloud can be used to share and transmit large data volumes among supply chain actors.…”

“…Experts surveyed from the Brazilian automotive OEMs were unanimous that adaptive robots will be used in process validation and corrective production. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) had low use in APQP, but their use will grow in the next five years [49]. AR is used for monitoring inventory, reducing errors, sending alerts on damaged goods during transport, and optimizing order picking.…”