Fostering Sustainable Linkages in the Automotive Supplier Industry 12-14 October 2011, Vienna

As local and global car manufacturers as well as tier one (T1) suppliers continuously demand higher standards in terms of cost, quality, and delivery, UNIDO’s Member States are requesting more technical support to increase the competitiveness of their small and medium-sized component manufacturers and to adapt to wider development constraints.

In October 2011, UNIDO organized a technical consultation entitled “Fostering Sustainable Linkages in the Automotive Supplier Industry- Lessons learned from UNIDO TC projects and the way forward” that allowed for a critical analysis of past and ongoing UNIDO projects in the automotive industry, and which helped undertake a gap analysis and chart the way forward for a revised and integrated approach of UNIDO’s technical assistance and advisory services in support of developing countries’ automotive industry as well as in transition economies and emerging markets. In particular, the consultation outlined the following salient features:

Supplier Development

• Training of experts and support institutions on Lean Manufacturing, TQM and TPM
• Productivity and quality upgrading of suppliers (including compliance with relevant standards) and documentation of results achieved through the dissemination of case studies
• Data collection of suppliers though mapping projects
• Benchmarking of suppliers and monitoring of results, based on standardized key performance indicators (KPIs)

Business and Investment Linkages

• Training of experts and support institutions to facilitate joint activities among suppliers (horizontal cooperation) and business linkages (supply chain context/supplier development)
• Develop and strengthen automotive cluster bodies
• Establish information platforms for stakeholders, such as supplier databases, and look at the provision of support services and support schemes
• Training of experts and suppliers on Resource Efficiency and Cleaner Production (RECP) methods
• Support for RECP implementation (including ISO 14001, carbon footprint, greenhouse gas accounting) along the supply chain
• Chemical Leasing to provide an integrated and market-based approach to handling hazardous substances in the production process
• Development of national automotive policies
• Training in, and application of Technology Foresight methodologies for public and private sector stakeholders
• Automotive policy development, review and advisory within the context of wider industrial policy development

The key documents, presentations and proceedings of the technical consultation can be found on here.