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Identifying, analyzing, and assessing risk in the strategic planning of a production network: the practical view of a German car manufacturer

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Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of identifying and assessing risk relevant to production networks. The objective is to create a systematic, comprehensive record of the risks relevant to the planning of car manufacturer’s production networks and to analyze these risks. The paper also discusses the methodology for assessing relevant risk in terms of the probability that the risk will materialize and the scale of the potential loss. A further objective is to assess the options for mitigating the risk through the use of a flexibly structured production network and to evaluate the associated options for responding to a change in market conditions. A case study demonstrates the possible impact of the main risk factors on performance if the organization concerned does not build flexibility into the network.

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Notes

  1. Sources included Ernst and Young Global Business Risk Report 2010 (Ernst&Young 2011), risk checklists (Romeike 2012; Denk and Exner-Merkelt 2005, p. 84; Ziegenbein 2007, pp. 185 et seq.), and internal sources.

  2. Baumann et al. (2006) recommend between eight and ten participants, Romeike and Hager (2009) between five and seven.

  3. This may occur in connection with the construction of a new facility, or in connection with the extension, conversion, or modification of an existing site.

  4. This may involve an increase in existing local content requirements, the introduction of new local content requirements, modifications to the prescribed methods for determining the level of local content, and/or the creation of free trade areas.

  5. The ROWEU market comprises Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

  6. These expert employees had already been interviewed as part of the risk identification process (see Sect. 4).

  7. All eight participants are directly involved in planning the production network that forms the basis for the example production network.

  8. In the calculation of the figure for the logistics costs risk, the high oil price scenario determined by the IEA is used in place of a probability figure of 5 %.

  9. See Appendix A.

  10. For the purposes of this paper, the passenger car models are aggregated into one model (type 1).

  11. Analysis of historical demand forecasts shows that a sales market was either overestimated or underestimated over the entire forecast period in over 95 % of instances.

  12. The currencies covered in this paper are those of the relevant markets: US dollar (USD), Chinese yuan (CNY), Brazilian real (BRL), Indian rupee (INR), and Russian ruble (RUB).

  13. The tools used for the purposes of this paper are programs for analyzing risk optimization produced by the Palisade Corporation. The @Risk program is based on Monte Carlo simulations for risk optimization. In addition to @Risk, this study has also used the StatTools software, in particular to analyze time series.

  14. In the case of the EUR/RUB and EUR/BRL exchange rates, the variance from the forecasted trend is determined using a Monte Carlo simulation.

  15. The fixed portion of the freight costs increases on average by approximately 3 % per year; this increase is contractually agreed.

  16. Brent Crude price.

  17. This study only considers one vehicle type, although the type has different market-specific features, for example to meet the varying safety requirements and exhaust emission standards.

  18. Only one vehicle model was considered in the context of the work on this paper. If several models are taken into account and a possible shift in demand treated as a risk factor, a flexible production network structure could be expected to deliver significantly greater benefits.

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Acknowledgments

The first author was supported by Thomas Ilgenfritz, Franz Homberger and the participants of the internal workshops (working for Daimler AG).

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Correspondence to Marius Häntsch.

Appendix A

Appendix A

Following optimization model is used for calculate the monetary impact of the risks on the production network.

The following indexes are defined for the optimization model:

$$\begin{aligned} \begin{array}{llll} \hbox {i}&{} \in &{} {\{}1, 2, {\ldots }, \hbox {I}{\}}&{} \hbox {products}\\ \hbox {i}2 &{}\in &{} {\{}1, 2, {\ldots }, \hbox {I}2{\}}&{} \hbox {supplied parts}\\ \hbox {f}&{} \in &{} {\{}1, 2, {\ldots }, \hbox {F}{\}}&{} \hbox {facilities}\\ \hbox {f}2&{} \in &{} {\{}1, 2, {\ldots }, \hbox {F}2{\}}&{} \hbox {supplier}\\ \hbox {t}&{} \in &{} {\{}1, 2, {\ldots }, \hbox {T}{\}}&{} \hbox {period}\\ \hbox {n}&{}\in &{} {\{}1, 2, {\ldots }, \hbox {N}{\}}&{} \hbox {scenarios}\\ \hbox {c}&{} \in &{}{\{}1, 2, {\ldots }, \hbox {C}{\}}&{} \hbox {configurations}\\ \hbox {m} &{}\in &{} {\{}1, 2, {\ldots }, \hbox {M}{\}}&{} \hbox {markets}\\ \end{array} \end{aligned}$$

The following variables are defined:

\(DCF_{t,n,c}\) :

\(=\) operating profit per period \(t\) per scenario \(n\) per configuration \(c\)

\(P_{i,f,t,n,c}\) :

\(=\) production volume of product typ \(i\) in facility \(f\) per period \(t\) per scenario \(n\) per configuration \(c\)

\(\textit{MaxProd}_{i,f,t,c}\) :

\(=\) maximum production volume of product typ \(i\) in facility \(f\) per period \(t\) per configuration \(c\)

\(\textit{MinProd}_{i,f,t,c}\) :

\(=\) minimum production volume of product typ \(i\) in facility \(f\) per period \(t\) per configuration \(c\)

\(pf_{i,f,t,c}^{capa}\) :

\(=\) capacity consumption per product typ \(i\) in facility \(f\) per period \(t\) per configuration \(c\)

\(C_{f,t,c}\) :

\(=\) capacity of facility \(f\) per period \(t\) per configuration \(c\)

\(\textit{BOM}_{i,i2}\) :

\(=\) bill of material of product \(i\) and supplied parts \(i2\)

\(TV_{i,i2,f,f2,t,n,c}^f\) :

\(=\) transport volume of supplied parts \(i2\) for product \(i \)from supplier \(f2\) to facility \(f\) per period \(t\) per scenario \(n\) per configuration \(c\)

\(TV_{i,f,t,n,c,m}^m\) :

\(=\) transport volume of product \(i \)from facility \(f\) for market \(m\) per period \(t\) per scenario \(n\) per configuration \(c\)

\(Costs_{t,n,c}\) :

\(=\) costs per period \(t\) per scenario \(n\) per configuration \(c\)

\(Revenue_{t,n,c}\) :

\(=\) revenues per period \(t\) per scenario \(n\) per configuration \(c\)

\(WACC\) :

\(=\) discount factor

The objective function is:

$$\begin{aligned} \max \left\{ {DCF_{n,c} } \right\} \qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad \forall n,c \end{aligned}$$

where:

$$\begin{aligned} DC\!F_{n,c} =\mathop \sum \limits _{t=1}^T \frac{(Revenue_{t,n,c} -Costs_{t,n,c} )}{(1+WACC)^t} \qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad \forall n,c \end{aligned}$$

subject to:

$$\begin{aligned} \begin{array}{l@{\quad }l} P_{i,f,t,n,c} \le \textit{MaxProd}_{i,f,t,c} &{} \forall i,f,t,n,c \\ P_{i,f,t,n,c} \ge \textit{MinProd}_{i,f,t,c} &{} \forall i,f,t,n,c \\ \sum \limits _i P_{i,f,t,n,c} *pf_{i,f,t,c}^{capa} \le C_{f,t,c} &{} \forall f,t,n,c \\ \textit{BOM}_{i,i2} *P_{i,f,t,n,c} =\mathop \sum \limits _f TV_{i,i2,f,f2,t,n,c}^f &{} \forall i,i2,f2,t,n,c \\ P_{i,f,t,n,c} =\left( {\mathop \sum \limits _m TV_{i,f,t,n,c,m}^m +\mathop \sum \limits _{f2,i2} TV_{i,i2,f,f2,t,n,c}^f }\right) &{} \forall i,f,t,n,c \end{array} \end{aligned}$$

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Häntsch, M., Huchzermeier, A. Identifying, analyzing, and assessing risk in the strategic planning of a production network: the practical view of a German car manufacturer. J Manag Control 24, 125–158 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00187-013-0178-y

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