Assessing supply chain resilience within the automotive industry in the event of a pandemic : A multiple case study of the COVID-19 disruption in the Scandinavian and German automotive industry

Background: The automotive industry experiences significant challenges such as electric mobility, autonomous cars, smart factories, and ridesharing. Above that, the COVID-19 pandemic did not only affect the global health care system but also caused a disruption that challenged the automotive manufacturing sector and its supply chains. Purpose: The automotive industry was investigated to assess the supply chain resilience during the COVID-19 disruption. Therefore, the supply chain performance along the disruption stages was determined. Also, the usage and value of supply chain resilience measures were explored to characterise the current state of supply chain resilience in the industry. Method: A multiple case study and purposeful sampling were used to gather empirical data. Semi-structured interviews with 21 automotive experts from the Scandinavian and German automotive industry were conducted. A content analysis approach was applied to analyse the primary data. The investigation was supported by a systematic literature review prior to the study and additional company reports as secondary data. Conclusion: The level of supply chain resilience within the automotive industry can be assessed as high. A quick recovery and a corresponding rebound of the production volume can be identified, even though the findings indicate that the COVID-19 disruption also caused a bullwhip effect. To compensate for this effect, agility measures, increased collaboration and information sharing, and risk management were used. Other supply chain resilience measures like technological innovations or sustainability were only used to a limited extent