Tesla sweptback into the automotive industry on a wave of great news and disruptive promise. Now the company is knowing that large-scale automotive manufacturing is infamously hard to perfect. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has acknowledged that supply chain trouble have brought to production delays, missed quotas, and busted deadlines.
Previous production problems have sent Tesla’s stock price billowing. In order to reduce the damage, Tesla has decided to remove multiple color picks. This quick fix may help to speed up production, but it does nothing to answer the circulation concerns that put production in turmoil in the first place.
Successful automotive manufacturers have one thing in common: The quality and consistency of the product are straight associated to the strength of the supply chain. Tesla is understanding this the hard way, but Toyota has been preaching this standard for many years. The automaker excels in terms of quality, thanks largely to the time it has invested in vetting suppliers and negotiating bulk deals. Toyota is successful because it has operated to guard its supply chain.
Tesla has taken the opposite track, rushing into production before building up a dependable distribution infrastructure. The company follows a “ build it and they will come ” philosophy based on the idea that tech can solve the historical challenges of manufacturing. Tesla is making a big bet and has experienced some high-profile stumbles. Still, the company's data-driven approach to supply chain management is the wave of the future.