ACMA SURVEY: Two in Three Auto Component Makers Cannot Redirect a Production Line Quickly

About 95% of companies surveyed for the BCG-ACMA report Beyond Resilience track demand swings and volume volatility with data. Yet two in three cannot redirect a production line quickly. Of the 95% that track volatility, two-thirds have capacity that is blocked and optimised for a specific product or a specific customer. In other cases the impediment is the time it takes to qualify with a new customer.

The result is that visibility arrives without options. When an anchor customer deviates from its forecast, the supplier can see the shortfall coming and still has nowhere to point the line.

One in three companies said demand volatility hit them hard over the past three to five years, with the impact similar at small and large firms. The report argues the drivers are no longer episodic: product lifecycles are shortening, consumer preferences are shifting faster, OEMs are changing model mix more often and the ICE-EV split is in continuous motion.

The report identifies four constraints behind the gap. Foundational planning data remains uneven, with persistent problems in master data, inventory accuracy and planning discipline – including at otherwise sophisticated organisations.

Customer-supplier collaboration rarely extends past order fulfilment, with smaller suppliers given targets on metrics such as OTIF and quality but little support on the processes or tools to hit them.

Demand-forecasting capability is thin, with most players planning production directly against the number the OEM hands over, rarely overlaying seasonality, trend or the possibility that the forecast itself is wrong. And lines are not flexible enough to absorb the swings that follow.

The same pattern of measurement without manoeuvre shows up on the supply side. More than 95% of companies track commodity prices and input cost risk, yet nearly two in three lack a systematic sub-tier risk assessment with a consolidated view and a regular review cadence – and most shocks originate at the sub-tier level. Two-thirds of small companies have not qualified a second source for most critical inputs, against about one-third of large companies.

The companies that have closed the gap did so through design rather than diligence. One mid-sized piston manufacturer built flexibility into the factory by favouring general-purpose machines that can be redeployed across parts, keeping changeovers to a few hours and running an in-house team that builds its own machines.

A manufacturer of precision forged differential gears treats design and engineering agility as the safety net – because it owns the design and can re-engineer a part quickly, it is never locked into a single customer's specification. A large Tier-1 moved from a monthly to a fortnightly MRP run, adopted a perpetual inventory system and put system-enabled locks on planning parameters after repeated mismatches between physical and system stock.

The report's practical recommendation is to buy the flexibility at the point of investment rather than retrofit it later: prefer flexible machines and equipment, and commission new lines with 20–30% spare capacity to absorb movement in either direction.

On the report's maturity ladder, small companies sit largely at the reactive level on line flexibility, medium companies at basic and large companies at managed – meaning general-purpose equipment on key lines, changeovers measured in hours and qualification with more than one customer for critical parts.

Intent is not the constraint. About 89% of companies said they are committed to building flexibility for new customers and geographies. Capital has been committed; capability is still being built.