Study: Standstill at the assembly line

Author: Marcus Schilling
Date: 28.08.2019

77% of companies have at least interruption in production

As long as a company had not experienced a crisis, it generally underestimated the importance of proactive risk management. As a result, only 24% of all companies have so far established systematic crisis response measures. 77% of companies reported at least one production interruption. 37% have even more than five interruptions in production. One in five of these interruptions cause damage of over one million euros. “risk radar” and “impact analyzer” now want to prevent this. This is the result of a study by the Federal Association of Materials Management.

The reason for most failures is the lack of preparation for possible problems as well as the lack of security for the entire process. Unfortunately, it is not enough to just secure one’s own production, but it is necessary to analyze the entire logistical process.

Of course, you can secure your own production against natural disasters or economic risks and strikes, but you should also be prepared for the fact that the employees of the suppliers might go on strike, which would also lead to a production standstill.

BMW records 50 supplier insolvencies each year and yet their production continues constantly because they are not resting on one possibility, but have always several alternatives available.

This type of preparation not only prevents production interruptions, but may also give you an advantage over your competitors. If this occurs and the competition is not present for a certain period of time, you will gain an advantage if your company continues to operate almost smoothly.

Risk management means that if there is a risk of delay, measures can be initiated by pressing just one button to keep production running. Delayed reactions due to not being informed have serious consequences.

The goal of supply chain risk management (SCRM) is to make the possible extent calculable, thus minimizing damage and maximizing production at the same time. Once damage has occurred, every minute counts.

To solve and prevent these problems, Stefan Papenberg launched the riskmethods solution in 2019. It is an algorithm that enables minute-by-minute monitoring of millions of global data sources, from online media to third-party databases. In this way, it is even possible to find out whether and where there is a problem to react preventively, even before the suppliers have even contacted you. All supplier and logistics routes are analyzed and production is monitored at every corner.