Level of knowledge and formalization of logistics and SCM in the Brazilian automotive industries suppliers

Abstract

The companies of vanguard understood that the real competition is not made among companies, but among supply chains. The supply chain management (SCM) concept is the logistics extension, while the logistics management is concerned with the organization flows optimization. This paper intends to divulge the level of the knowledge and the formalization of logistics and SCM already set up by the suppliers of Brazilian automotive industries. The SCM recognized that the internal integration is not enough for the competitiveness achievement. The automotive segment can be considered representative in logistics and SCM practices in Brazil deserves to be noticeable. In order to achieve this, it was accomplished an applied, exploratory, descriptive and qualitative survey, through inductive approach. The technical procedure used was a survey. The data collection was carried out through questionnaires sent to fifty representative suppliers of automotive industry, with the return of 64% answers. The results of the survey showed that the main impediment in the implementation of the SCM concept is precisely the incoherence in the culture of the companies surveyed about the logistics and SCM, concerning the partnerships and the exchange of information. © 2007 Springer-Verlag London Limited.