Managing Disruptions in Inbound Logistics of the Automotive Sector

Management of the supply chain in the automotive sector is one of the most complex tasks since it involves numerous partners. Managing the inbound flow becomes more vital for large automotive manufacturers with hundreds of suppliers providing components according to just-in-time strategies. This paper presents a decision-support toolkit for monitoring and managing the disruptions in the inbound flow of the automotive sector. When a disruptive event happens, it affects the dock and transportation planning of the manufacturer. To cope with the consequent order displacements, some alternative solutions can be applied, with each alternative incurring additional costs. The paper proposes a managing strategy in which optimization models for the dock plan are utilized to deal with disruptive orders and to minimize the negative impacts on time and cost in the supply network.