The development of supply chain structures in the automotive aftermarket sector

Proceedings of the Logistics Research Network Conference, September 16th-17th, Huddersfield, UK.

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Abstract

The paper documents, models and simulates the development of supply chain structures in the automotive aftermarket sector in relation to the historical, present and predicted future market trends. The characteristics of the supply chain in terms of number of players, consolidation, market and customer requirements are given. Suitable measures of performance (MOPs) are defined and classified as either market qualifiers or order winners. Aggregate MOPs include quality, service time, service level and total logistics costs. The simulation results show that, due to the changing nature of the characteristics of the supply chain, the optimum pan European strategy is to operate a consolidated distribution network.