Navigating the rough roads of automotive industry challenges

The automotive industry drives global economies. It fuels our road trips, commutes, and weekly errands. But with trade uncertainty, rising material costs, growing talent shortages, an industry-wide transition to electric and hybrid vehicles, along with changing regulations, automotive manufacturers are facing more than a few speed bumps.

The problem: Legacy technology lacks the data-driven, predictive capabilities needed to navigate current macroeconomic challenges. To start, get, and stay ahead of the curve, automotive companies need solutions purpose-built for them. They need comprehensive visibility across supply chains, the foresight to maintain margins as costs rise and consumer behaviour shifts, frameworks and up-to-date data to ensure compliance with evolving regulatory standards, and automated processes to help them do more with fewer resources.

Automotive industry challenges: Navigating global trade uncertainty

The automotive industry depends heavily on worldwide supply networks. Almost 7 in 10 new cars built for American consumers are assembled outside the United States . Plus, the thousands of parts it takes to build a single car are sourced from numerous countries worldwide. For example, 80% of the rubber used to make tyres originates from five countries: Thailand, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Vietnam, and Malaysia. For many manufacturers, maintaining this international network is essential to reducing costs; experts suggest that if an American car manufacturer had to use parts exclusively made domestically, material costs alone could increase by thousands per vehicle.

Effectively managing such complex supply chains is hard enough. But during economically volatile times, especially with evolving trade policies, maintaining consistent, on-time deliveries to customers is even more difficult.

Volatile costs and supply chain disruption undermine profitability

Beyond supply chain uncertainty, macroeconomic volatility also creates pricing fluctuations across the hundreds of components required to construct a vehicle. This results in unpredictable production costs for manufacturers and volatile consumer demand—putting even more pressure on suppliers’ margins. When trade agreements change by the day, once-accurate forecasts become irrelevant in an instant. Without critical visibility into their bottom line, basic business investments and operations can feel like a gamble.

Doing more with less: Process automation in the automotive industry

New and changing regulations make it more complex than ever for manufacturers to remain compliant across multiple jurisdictions. Automotive companies must constantly adhere to evolving emissions standards and safety regulations that widely vary across markets.

Simultaneously, increasing talent shortages mean automotive manufacturers need to do more with less. When companies are short-staffed, relying on manual and tedious processes to complete essential workflows—such as generating financial reports, maintaining quality control, or ensuring updated products comply with various safety and environmental standards—takes away time and resources that could be better spent on innovation and growth.

Automotive manufacturing solutions for complex industry needs

The Infor™ Industry Cloud Complete approach empowers automotive companies to thrive in the face of these industry challenges. Purpose-built for automotive manufacturers, Infor CloudSuite™ Automotive delivers the analytical and predictive capabilities businesses need to accelerate through today’s volatile economic conditions, prepare for future roadblocks, and build resilience for tomorrow’s unexpected market shifts.

Infor CloudSuite Automotive helps manufacturers identify cost-effective, alternative sources for materials, so teams are prepared for supply chain shocks. Furthermore, Infor Velocity Suite offers process mining technology that identifies supply chain disruptions in real time and highlights vulnerable purchase orders so your team can take action before end customers are impacted. To help maintain margins when material costs are in flux, Infor’s artificial intelligence (AI)-powered analytics and configure, price, quote (CPQ) capabilities help automotive companies focus production resources on profitable configurations.

By streamlining complex manufacturing processes from order configuration to final assembly, Infor CloudSuite Automotive helps manufacturers stay productive and agile, even in the face of staffing shortages. The solution also automatically tracks regulatory changes across markets, simplifying what it takes to stay compliant without expanding your team. Infor Velocity Suite provides access to hyper-specific automations designed to reduce manual workload in areas like financial reporting, supplier communications, delivery date changes, and vendor compliance checks—maximising your existing staff’s capacity for innovation.

Driving innovation in manufacturing with Infor's Industry Cloud Complete

With Infor's complete and industry-specific solutions, automotive manufacturers can move the starting line forward, get ahead of the industry’s biggest roadblocks, and stay ahead of the curve and the competition for years to come.

Discover how Infor makes possible happen for automotive companies and companies across industries here.