A roadmap to help firms mitigate supply chains risks amid COVID-19 disruptions

COVID-19 has impacted all industries, but the effects on automotive and industrial manufacturers are expected to be disproportionately adverse. The supply chain of these firms has been disrupted, causing significant shortages in raw materials and components. Moreover, firms have failed to learn from previous crises, making them unprepared to deal with the current pandemic.

This paper presents an action plan that manufacturers can adopt to build resilience in their supply chains. A proactive or preventive approach will help manufacturers mitigate risks, but few have implemented this strategy. This can be done by adopting upstream activities, and the first step in implementing this is to set up a permanent decision-making task force for the supply chain.

Adopting technologies such as cloud software applications, collaboration platform products, digital twin, analytics, and machine learning will help auto and industrial manufacturers mitigate their supply chain risks and develop resilient networks, to tide over future crises.