Toni Erfurth

• Global manufacturing networks and the underlying global supply chains form the centerpiece of automotive production. Over the last decades, original equipment manufacturers established overseas plants in the course of their expansion strategy and employed so-called knocked-down supply chains to ship all parts pre-assembled and arranged in kits to them. The overseas plants have matured into fully-equipped plants by taking over value-adding processes. As a consequence, the global manufacturing networks have shifted their focus away from simplification toward performance. The underlying knocked-down supply chains, however, have not adapted and still feature high inventories, lead times and costs. Even though knocked-down supply chains play a key role in global manufacturing networks, they have not been integrated. It is not possible to evaluate their fit and to derive the requirements. Despite the intense effort to improve the performance in the factories, there is little research on improvement levers in the context of knocked-down supply chains. This Thesis intends to explore how knocked-down supply chains can be aligned with global manufacturing networks. It conducts a cross-case study to provide an overview of current knocked-down supply chains and global manufacturing networks. The Thesis develops an integrated framework that matches knocked-down supply chains and global manufacturing networks and identifies weak spots in supply chain performance. The Thesis then applies a two-fold approach. It explores the general working principle of knocked-down supply chains by means of intermodal transportation. Gaining impetus from lean management, the Thesis then identifies improvement levers and subsequently evaluates their effect on knocked-down supply chains. The Thesis shows that the supply chain performance of knocked-down supply chains and thus the fit with the global manufacturing network can be improved.