Supply Chain Automotive Industry
Abstract
While sometimes characterized as “stable” the World automotive industry continues to experience dynamic change—change that sweeps across national borders. These changes have struck in particular, the U.S and the Japanese automotive industries. To succeed, auto manufacturers must manage large and complex supply chains, spanning many geographic regions, and pursue opportunities in diverse national markets. While national policies play an important role in shaping the environment for local manufacturing operations and resulting products, cost competition increasingly drives the industry toward global product offerings.
This report explores several important dimensions of the forces of change facing the U.S. and the Japanese auto industry. We will present a comparison between the Asian and North American automobile manufacturing practices and in particular, the two companies, Ford and Honda Motors. A comparison will be made between the two markets on how each handles product varieties, their delivery methods from the factory to consumers, as well as the markets channels used. A comprehensive study is made to compare the automobile product varieties in the two regions and explain how customer choices and the effect of competition have led to this diversification in the products. The importance of marketing channels has gone largely unnoticed. For this purpose, marketing channel strategies will be discussed in detail. The relationships among suppliers, customers and logistics service providers will also be analyzed, in other words, the sourcing and the in-bound supply strategies.
North America

Asian

Ford Motors “Ford Taurus”
Honda Motor “Honda Accord”
Table 1: North American and Asian automakers to be analyzed in this project
These two models have been chosen based on the annual report posted at the corporate sites for both companies. Honda Corporate site shows that Honda Accord achieved its highest sales recently. The choice of Ford Taurus comes
While sometimes characterized as “stable” the World automotive industry continues to experience dynamic change—change that sweeps across national borders. These changes have struck in particular, the U.S and the Japanese automotive industries. To succeed, auto manufacturers must manage large and complex supply chains, spanning many geographic regions, and pursue opportunities in diverse national markets. While national policies play an important role in shaping the environment for local manufacturing operations and resulting products, cost competition increasingly drives the industry toward global product offerings.
This report explores several important dimensions of the forces of change facing the U.S. and the Japanese auto industry. We will present a comparison between the Asian and North American automobile manufacturing practices and in particular, the two companies, Ford and Honda Motors. A comparison will be made between the two markets on how each handles product varieties, their delivery methods from the factory to consumers, as well as the markets channels used. A comprehensive study is made to compare the automobile product varieties in the two regions and explain how customer choices and the effect of competition have led to this diversification in the products. The importance of marketing channels has gone largely unnoticed. For this purpose, marketing channel strategies will be discussed in detail. The relationships among suppliers, customers and logistics service providers will also be analyzed, in other words, the sourcing and the in-bound supply strategies.
North America

Asian

Ford Motors “Ford Taurus”
Honda Motor “Honda Accord”
Table 1: North American and Asian automakers to be analyzed in this project
These two models have been chosen based on the annual report posted at the corporate sites for both companies. Honda Corporate site shows that Honda Accord achieved its highest sales recently. The choice of Ford Taurus comes