<p>With the purpose of expanding our understanding on the main causes that make maintaining competitiveness a challenging issue for companies in an industry, a qualitative research is conducted in this thesis based on Porter theoretical framework (i.e. the five competitive forces model); thereby selecting a single case study with a Swedish rubber subcontractor. The findings show that the threat of new entrants, the rivalry among the existing rubber subcontractors, the bargaining power of carmakers, the bargaining power of suppliers and the role of the Swedish government all highly concern and challenge the competitiveness of the case company. However, given the fact that close substitute products to the case company’s product are absent from the market, their threat does not represent any distress for the competitiveness of the company.</p>

With the purpose of expanding our understanding on the main causes that make maintaining competitiveness a challenging issue for companies in an industry, a qualitative research is conducted in this thesis based on Porter theoretical framework (i.e. the five competitive forces model); thereby selecting a single case study with a Swedish rubber subcontractor. The findings show that the threat of new entrants, the rivalry among the existing rubber subcontractors, the bargaining power of carmakers, the bargaining power of suppliers and the role of the Swedish government all highly concern and challenge the competitiveness of the case company. However, given the fact that close substitute products to the case company’s product are absent from the market, their threat does not represent any distress for the competitiveness of the company.

Submitted by Nadir Basilio (nadirsb@uninove.br) on 2017-02-22T18:50:30Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Fabio Yukio Takeno.pdf: 1595513 bytes, checksum: f6fc6f936b044a10c82bdbc5c2bac785 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-02-22T18:50:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fabio Yukio Takeno.pdf: 1595513 bytes, checksum: f6fc6f936b044a10c82bdbc5c2bac785 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-05-24 / With the increasing openness of the international markets, and increasing demands on the part of vehicle manufacturers, it is necessary that the first and second level suppliers become increasingly competitive in order to continue integrating the crowded automotive supply chain. However, there are determinants for such suppliers’ abrupt fall in this scenario and affluent, considering the cultural issues and requirements specific to each of them is subjected to supply the selection process.Currently, the literature does not provide much information to the advancement of knowledge in the academic, causing some propositions to be called into question, for example: what is the extent of use of lean supply practices in the Brazilian automotive industry? Do the Suppliers follow all practices required by the methodology?In order to answer these questions the research proposes to carry out a wide and extensive review of the literature, followed by a survey, in order to ascertain to what extent the practices are being adopted by vendors that are part of the supply chain of the major automakers world's vehicles, installed in Brazil.The foundation of the research will be characterized as applied, quantitative, and nature as their approach being defined with exploratory objectives and correlational. It was used as method the survey, whose data collection instrument was through questionnaires. The companies surveyed, the Brazilian automotive sector, will be part of the supply chain of three major automakers, divided by its continental origin, one Japanese, one American and finally a European. They were obtained fourty nine questionnaires that were answered by tier suppliers and component suppliers from tier 1 and tier 2 of the supply chain. I assumed that this work may show that the actual level of implementation of lean supply this relationship between manufacturers and suppliers on the national scene, opening future opportunities for new research into other niches that might be in the supply chain. / Com a crescente abertura de mercado e exigências cada vez maiores por parte dos fabricantes de veículos, se faz necessário que os fornecedores de primeiro e segundo níveis se tornem cada vez mais competitivos a fim de continuarem integrando a concorrida cadeia de suprimentos automotiva. Contudo, existem fatores determinantes para que tais fornecedores se enquadrem neste cenário abrupto e afluente, tendo em vista as questões culturais e requisitos específicos a que cada um deles é submetido no processo de seleção para fornecimento. Atualmente a literatura não dispõe de muitas informações para o avanço do conhecimento no âmbito acadêmico, fazendo com que algumas proposições sejam colocadas em questão, como exemplo: qual a extensão da utilização das práticas do suprimento enxuto na cadeia automotiva brasileira? Os fornecedores seguem todas as práticas requeridas pela metodologia? Com o intuito de responder tais questões a pesquisa aqui desenvolvida propôs-se a realizar uma ampla revisão na literatura, seguida de uma survey, a fim de averiguar qual a extensão das práticas do suprimento enxuto que estão sendo adotadas pelos fornecedores que fazem parte da cadeia de suprimentos das principais montadoras de veículos instaladas no Brasil. A pesquisa foi caracterizada como aplicada e de natureza quantitativa, quanto sua abordagem sendo definidas com objetivos exploratório e correlacional. Utilizou-se como método a survey, cujo instrumento de coleta de dados foi o questionário. As empresas pesquisadas, do setor automotivo brasileiro, são parte da cadeia de suprimentos de grandes montadoras de veículos, divididas por sua origem continental, sendo uma japonesa, uma americana e por fim uma européia. Foram obtidos quarenta e nove questionários por meio de empresas sistemistas e fornecedores de componentes do tier 1 e tier 2 da cadeia de suprimentos. Presume-se que este trabalho possa evidenciar qual o real nível de aplicação do suprimento enxuto nesta relação entre montadoras e fornecedores no cenário nacional, abrindo oportunidades futuras de novas pesquisas sobre outros nichos que possam haver na cadeia.