The logistic cycle of the supply chain of the motor vehicle industry: critical issues and pathways of regional development

The functioning of the supply chains represents a highly investigated field. This is can be accounted for by the fact that in some productive sectors, such as the automotive one, most of the product is concretely produced by a wide and diverse range of companies supplying both intermediate goods and services to production (Calabrese and Erbetta, 2005; Volpato, 2008). Among the latter, much attention has been given to the engineering services and design, less to the providers of transport and logistics services. Nevertheless, the latter result to have central importance for the correct functioning of the supply chains. The present contribution seeks to fill this gap, through the construction of a self-assessment method of the company performances in the field of transport and logistics, as well as thanks to the results of a thorough analysis of the logistic-productive cycle of the automotive supply chain of an important Italian industrial region.