Adaptation strategies for building supply chain viability: A case study analysis of the global automotive industry re-purposing during the COVID-19 pandemic

Supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have drastically transformed the automotive industry by adversely affecting and seriously disrupting its global networks with regards to degree of severity and complexity, scale and impact duration. The conventional disruption mitigation measures showed to be inadequate in assisting businesses to survive in this extremely volatile and deeply uncertain environment. Through design of multiple case-studies and a cross-case analysis, we uncover repurposing practices, which have been used in the automotive industry to maintain operations and deliver highly demanded medical items. Our results show that a combination of repurposing, intertwining, scalability, and substitution represents the most effective way for increasing supply chain viability during a long-term crisis. The proposed conceptual framework consists of three constructs, namely adapting supply chains and operations, rethinking sourcing strategy and building intertwined supply networks, as well as five viability capabilities including adaptability, agility, flexibility, collaboration and visibility. The framework can be used by supply chain managers as a guidance for creating supply chain viability using adaptation-based principles.