Risk Assessment of an Internal Supply Chain : A case study of Thule Trailers AB Jönköping

• Main Authors: Fors, Alexandra, Josefsson, Madeleine, Lönn Lindh, Sofia
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Högskolan i Jönköping, Internationella Handelshögskolan 2007
• Subjects: Supply chain risk; internal supply chains; risk management; supply chain mapping
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-677

The concept of supply chain management has become an important issue for companies today in order to keep or gain competitive advantage. It is all about managing your supply chain to reach the highest possible efficiency and increase profits through cooperation with your supply chain partners. A supply chain is however vulnerable to several threats, or risks, that decreases the overall efficiency and influences the business performance. The purpose of this thesis is to identify the internal risks that can be found in a basic internal supply chain in order to make an assessment of their manageability and impact using a specific case. To do this a case study of Thule Trailers AB in Jönköping was conducted. Thule Trailers AB chose to offshore their main production of components to Poland in 2003, so the company’s internal supply chain was expanded outside of Sweden. This research looks closer at the interactions between Thule Trailers AB in Jönköping and their internal supplier plant in Poland. The research was conducted using a qualitative method with several interviews with representatives in both Jönköping and Poland, during which a number of internal risks were identified in Thule Trailers AB in Jönköpings’ internal supply chain. The conclusions made are that the internal risks identified, i.e. communication risks, quality risks etc, might not have as great an influence on the company as would external risks, they can however in comparison be managed. The findings suggest that the issues with e.g. quality and delivery basically come down to insufficient communication inside the internal supply chain. Another conclusion that could be drawn is that since the internal risks in the internal supply chain all are ripple effects, its source is almost always external, which implies that their avoidance is difficult. At least they cannot be eliminated completely by the company itself, it needs to be done in cooperation with the company’s external supply chain partners. There is potential to solve most of the internal problems that can be managed internally if both parties are prepared to put some real effort into reducing the risk sources. The risks are manageable and need to be managed to reduce the impact it has for the customer and end customer in turn. The authors of this thesis believe that for a company to be successful, the end customer has to be prioritized in almost every situation, and this goes for all of the members in the supply chain, especially the internal ones.