Call for papers: Integrating the Automotive Supply Network: The Implementation of Promising Practice

Call for papers: Integrating the Automotive Supply Network: The Implementation of Promising Practice

A special issue of International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management

Practitioners and researchers have come to realise incremental improvement initiatives such as TQM, Lean and Six Sigma are key elements in boosting automotive industry performance. The management of change, therefore, has increasingly become a way of life for OEMs and suppliers grappling with widening market segmentation whilst competing with 'China price'.

However, critics of the industry, many of whose western giants are now saddled with crippling debt and plunging share prices, question why more radical changes that could enable further supply inte-gration are widely discussed but so rarely implemented successfully (Economist 2007). As once 'predictable' merger and acquisition activity has gone into reverse at firms such as Ford and Daimler-Chrysler, many commentators increasingly view volume manufacture in terms of a future dominated by Toyota and other more recently emerging eastern automakers.

This special issue seeks to examine the implementation of what it terms 'promising practice' over the next 10 to 20 years, where it is evident that some major and unavoidable changes are likely to occur in world automotive supply network strategy and structure. As process and product technology increasingly reflects the needs of a more customer-centric and carbon-light 21st century supply network, the editors ask: How must the world auto industry react? And, what systems or processes need to be implemented to ensure OEMs & suppliers maintain a viable business model for the future?

Papers to be included in this special issue should be focused on, but not limited to, the following subjects:

• Supply strategy
• Supply integration, communications, and system interoperability
• Impact of integration on society and the economy
• Leveraging promising practice and system adoption
• Through-life support and sustainability
• Outsourcing and risk
• Cultural barriers to integration
• Power dynamics and governance
• Globalisation and extended supply networks

The editors believe it is time to add new contributions to the public discussion on the topic by highlighting the key issues surrounding the integration of automotive supply chain in the context of sustainability and social responsibility. The objective is to build a picture of sustainable integration of automotive supply networks in as wide a context as possible. Solutions from different countries and companies should be compared and contrasted with the description and analysis of specific cases.

Important Dates
Deadline for (extended) abstract submission: 31 March 2008
Response by guest editor: 30 April 2008
Deadline for full paper submission: 31 July 2008