In the last few years, there have been several big changes in the automotive industry, and global automotive supply chains have faced many challenges, mainly due to the COVID-19 epidemic. The virus had several huge impacts on the global market, with different risk management approaches companies and global supply chains needed to adapt to the altered situation. During the second and third wave of the epidemic, several regions and countries were under lockdown for different intervals in order to stop the spread of the virus. Some countries entered lockdown for the first time, and many of them entered lockdown again, as when the first wave occurred. The economy of the Philippines is dependent on electronics-related industries, which faced extraordinary risks from different sources, and these industries suffered severe consequences because of COVID-19. Crucial automotive suppliers outsource their production facilities to the Philippines region, and the dominant semiconductor segments were heavily impaired due to the lockdowns. Electrification in the automotive industry and the spread of electric vehicles is becoming increasingly important due to rapid technological development. The economic shock caused by COVID-19 forced companies in this sector to diversify their supply chain activities in order to stay competitive, minimize the supply chain-related risks and to start recovery processes. The authors analysed the risks, position, opportunities, challenges, difficulties, reactions and solutions of a certain automotive supplier, which was heavily reliant on the Philippines, and Chinese suppliers.

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Securing the high level of performance of the supply chains is a difficult task. The harmonization of different interests, the coordination of the raw material supply and information flow, the cooperation of the partners, forging and maintaining a relationship of trust are challenging even in an ideal world in order to meet the customer demands. The recent outbreak of the COVID-19 presents the members of the supply chains with extreme challenges. Because of the epidemic, the value added activities of the supply chains are getting even more importance. It became clear that the different supply chains connect the whole economy in a global and local scale as well. The choice of the inventory and organizational strategy is a key aspect in a crisis like this. The aim of this study is to present the current challenges and their viable solutions in order to check the possibilities to maintain the operation of the supply chains even in this difficult economic and social period using an automotive case study as an example.