Supply chain management and logistics strategy: case studies in automotive suppliers.

Automotive industry is, traditionally, a fruitful field for the developments in Operations Engineering/Management. In Brazil, such industry has suffered the impacts of structural changes like the adoption of lean manufacturing, the set up of new productive chains, changes in product design, among others.Considering the possible impacts of all these changes, this work aims at analyzing and comparing the Logistics and Supply Chain Management characteristics of two automotive suppliers.The case analysis suggests that, in both studied suppliers, logistics strategic goals (service level) are similar, but the companies need to undertake distinct logistic activities, according to the chains to which they belong. Specifically, the strategic and structural issues seem to condition the logistics of each supplier, creating a framework in which the suppliers need to manage their logistic activities to achieve the desired strategic goals.