Empirical Research, Scor-based Automotive Supply Chain Risk Identification

Supply chain can be regarded as a cooperative and dynamic network that focal corporate structured cross enterprises,department and culture which are linked together from suppliers' suppliers to customers' customers and end user,a connected series of activities which concerned with materials purchasing,manufacturing,sales, and distributionby the flow of goods and information.In the integration of global economy environment,no powerful corporation can accomplish all of its business on its own.Theymust manage their supply chain with their upstream and downstream partners.But with the fast development of science technology and economy,supply chain management faces a lot of uncertainty.Supply chain Risk caused by these uncertainties is one of the challenges that enterprises must deal with.As supply chain risk that is caused by factors inside or outside the enterprise may affect greatly its partners along the supply chain.What is worse,supply chain will be interrupted;production efficiency will be lowered and customer needs can not be satisfied.Bullwhip effect brought by fluctuations along supply chains may waste resources and deteriorate social welfare.Therefore to study the causes behind supply chain risks and how to manage such risks is critical to a company's sustainable development.As the core member of its supply chain,automobile manufacturing company can affect its partners and customers through supply chain risks.Since China has become the third largest automobile manufacturing country and the second largest consumption market in 2006,research on automobile supply chain risks is necessary to Chinese automobile industry and the whole country's economy.This paper focuses on the theoretic model and data analysis,and attempts to build up a theoretic model concerning automobile supply chain risks,which is based on the former research achievements about supply chain risks,supply chain operations reference model(SCOR),characteristics of automobile industry,and interviews with automobile companies.In this model,supply chain risks faced by automobile companies are mainly fiom five aspects:strategy and culture,automobile spare parts purchasing,assembling and manufacturing process,transportation and logistics,as well as external environment.Then,we get research data through questionnaires among managers in automobile companies and researchers at academic institutes.Then,we use Confirmatory Factor Analysis method to analyze the model from each dimesion of supply chain risk sources whether it fits the data or not and do some modification in the analysis process.The result of the data analysis proves that the "Automobile supply chain risk recognitionmodel based on SCOR" is well grounded in theory and practice.At last,some suggestions regarding automobile supply chain risks are provided to,automobile industry for reference.Result from this study is not only of considerable value to automobile industry,but also an illumination for future research.