The battle against supply chain disruption in the automotive industry is set to continue well into 2022 but Nissan North America is standing its ground by putting in place more strategic processes backed up by the latest technology to provide better visibility and predictive analysis.

The carmaker is conducting a detailed review of the outbound processes to identify where automation can make the delivery of vehicles more efficient. It is also testing the new processes through series of projects.

“We are not along as far as some of the other OEMs but [visibility tools] are definitely for us the future,” said Steve Jernigan, director of finished vehicle logistics at Nissan North America. “We are working on developing better visibility that, in the end, allows us to make decisions and understand where our inventories are, and where the exceptions are. Technology and visibility are a huge investment.”

That includes Nissan looking at route optimisation with its car carriers, with volumes allocated in mind of faster turnarounds for reloading and distribution. What Nissan is doing to gain this better visibility is digging into its outbound processes and reporting using real-time updates.