A comprehensive study of the transformation of the Brazilian automotive industry

International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management

Volumn 2, Issue 1, 2002, Pages 10-23

  Zilbovicius, Mauro ^a   Marx, Roberto ^a   Salerno, Mario Sergio ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SÃO PAULO   (Brazil)

Author keywords

assembler supplier relationship; Brazilian automotive industry; division of labour in design activities; industrial restructuring; value added chain

Indexed keywords

EID: 2542472081     PISSN: 14709511     EISSN: 17415012     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1504/IJATM.2002.000054     Document Type: Article

References (21)

1. see Salerno, M.S., Arbix, G., Zilbovicius, M. and Dias, A.V.C. (1998) ‘Changes and persistences on the relationship between assemblers and suppliers in Brazil’, Paris, Actes du Gerpisa, No. 24, pp.51–66.
2. see also Humphrey, J., Lecler, Y. and Salerno, M.S., (Eds.) (2000) Global Strategies and Local Realities: the Auto Industry in Emerging Markets. London, MacMillan.
3. see Marx, R., Salerno, M.S. and Zilbovicius, M. (1997) ‘The ‘modular consortium’ in a new VW truck plant in Brazil: new forms of assembler and suppliers relationship’, Integrated Manufacturing Systems, Vol. 8, No. 5, pp.292–298.
4. Salerno, M.S. and Dias, A.V.C. (2000) ‘Product design modularity, modular production, modular organisation: the evolution of modular concepts’, Annals, VIII GERPISA International Colloquium ‘The World that Changed the Machine’, Paris, Gerpisa, (CD-ROM).
5. For a broad review of the literature
6. see Arbix, G. and Zilbovicius, M. (2001) ‘Local adjustment to globalization: a comparative study of foreign investment in two regions of Brazil, greater ABC and greater Porto Alegre’, SEED Working Paper No.11, Geneva, International Labour Office.
7. It is not our objective to discuss modularity in itself. For the purposes of the research and of this paper, we are adopting the term in a broader sense, that is, ‘involving the supply of sub-assemblies, sub-systems, indicating that some assembly activities were absorbed by (some) suppliers’.
8. Quadros, R. and Queiroz, S. (2000) ‘The implications of globalisation for the distribution of design competencies in the auto industry in Mercosur’, Annals, VIII GERPISA International Colloquium ‘The World that Changed the Machine', Paris, Gerpisa. (CD-ROM). In this paper a survey on design is presented, concerning some Brazilian companies.
9. The questionnaire (in Portuguese) can be seen and downloaded from www.prd.usp.br/cadeia-automotiva, the home page of the research. Other information on the project is also shown there.
10. For simplicity, multinationals, transnationals, TNCs etc. are companies controlled by foreigners. Among the Brazilian owned companies there are (a few) multinationals as well.
11. Presentation on ‘Perspectives for emerging countries’ during the thematic opening of the Seventh International Colloquium ‘Internationalization: Confrontation of Firms Trajectories and Automobile Areas' (1999), GERPISA, Paris.
12. We will not differentiate between transnationals, multi-regional etc. TNCs in this paper are those companies controlled by foreign capital.
13. By OEM we refer to companies that directly supply to an assembler or a company within the assembler’s supply chain.
14. Companies can import and benefit from lower taxes on the understanding that they compensate it with exports over a period of time. We argue that it benefits TNCs because they can import with low taxes to run the first jobs of their production.
15. Fleury, A. (1997) ‘Estratégia, organização e gestão de empresas em mercados globalizados: a experiência recente do Brasil’, Gestão & Produção, Vol.4, No.3, pp.264–277.
16. Including salaries of engineers and technicians dedicated to design or innovation in product/process, labs, technical centres, and technology contracts. The questionnaire permits the isolation of each component, but we have not done a disaggregated analysis yet.
17. Percentage related to all 117 OEM firms considered; four firms did not respond to this question.
18. All data comparing TNCs with Brazilian-controlled companies are not weighted by the % of TNCs in the sample. As the number of Brazilian companies in the sample is greater than TNCs, a weight could be introduced as a way of balancing it out.
19. Salerno, M.S. (2001) ‘The characteristics and the role of modularity in the automotive business’, International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.92–107.
20. Not considering firms that gave no answer to the question the percentage rises to 72%. Not responding probably means that the firm does not have long-term contracts.
21. A point for further in depth analysis is the relation of autoparts with raw material providers (steel, aluminum etc), traditionally an oligopoly that imposes quotas and delivery frequencies on clients below a predefined volume of acquisition.