The COVID-19 Impact on Supply Chain Operations of Automotive Industry: A Case Study of Sustainability 4.0 Based on Sense–Adapt–Transform Framework

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of global manufacturing companies to their supply chains and operating activities as one of the significant disruption events of the past two decades. It has demonstrated that major companies underestimate the need for sustainable and resilient operations. The pandemic has resulted in significant disruptions especially in the automotive industry. The goal of the study is to determine impact of the COVID-19 on supply chain operations in a Turkish automotive manufacturer and to develop a framework for improving operational activities to survive in the VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) environment. The study identifies how the case study company has been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak and what challenges the company faced during the pandemic. A diagnostic survey and semi-structured interviews were used as data sources with qualitative and quantitative analysis. The results showed that the pandemic led to significant disruptions through various factors explained by shortage of raw materials/spare parts, availability of transportation, availability of labors, demand fluctuations, increase in sick leaves, new health and safety regulations. Findings also show the necessity to re-design resilience supply chain management by providing recovery plans (forecasting, supplier selection, simulation, monitoring) which consider different measures in different stages. In addition, the best practices were recommended for the case study by considering internal, external, and technological challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the given targeted guidelines and improvement for the automotive company might be applicable in the industrial practices for other organizations. The article concludes with future research directions and managerial implications for successful applications.

1. Introduction

The world faces a challenging time to resist COVID-19, which is expected to be the most significant disruption among the last three industrial revolutions. The pandemic enforced a total lockdown of companies from halted production to supply and demand issues, so the leaders and professionals were searching for sustainable solutions and/or best practices to assure smooth operations at manufacturing companies. Facing the crisis, the pandemic has had a significant impact on the Turkish automotive industry, with vulnerabilities and even disruptions affecting a case study Turkish company and other automotive manufacturers across the globe. Predicting the long-term economic, behavioral, or societal consequences is challenging because these factors have not been researched systematically in the past. The last infectious disease which is called COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 was identified on 31 December in 2019 in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. The coronavirus spread exponentially throughout the globe in January and February 2020. Due to rapid increase around the globe, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic on 11 March 2020. Most of the countries already have implemented some regulations to stop the spread of the coronavirus which is still going around. These restrictions such as halt in production, border closure, social distance regulation, etc. affected various sectors at various levels. Therefore, the companies were affected due to these significant challenges and disruptions that increased the breakdowns not only in the global supply chain operations but also on specific industries of various sizes [1,2]. The majority of the manufacturing companies which were deeply involved in the global supply chain were forced to halt their production because of safety regulations, shortage of raw materials/spare parts/finished goods, unavailability of transportation and staff [3,4]. These disruptions brought to light unseen vulnerabilities of supply chain operations during the VUCA environment. It shows the importance of having the resilient and sustainable operations as one of the crucial factors for the companies.

Current research literature on the COVID-19 in automotive industry was examined to identify any similarities in transformational framework with the present research study [5]. There are several studies on the COVID impact on supply chain operations [6,7,8], but they do not address these issues for the automotive industry, especially not focusing on the Turkish market. In addition, these studies have not used the research method as presented in the authors’ research. It might be useful for other car manufacturers and their policymakers to take necessary actions and policies based on measures to overcome disruptions encountered in the automotive sector due to the present pandemic. A proposal of best practices and recommendations through the construction of a “conceptual sense–adapt–transform” approach for providing resilience and sustainability is developed for one Turkish car manufacturer. Company-specific research can provide more critical analysis instead of the industry-specific analyses. That is why this study differs from others which focus on the Turkish automotive industry only putting aside many large automotive companies representing the whole industry.

Prior to the core study, researchers analyzed various industries (tours, food industry, energy sector, etc.) [8] without focusing on transitioning to sustainable supply in the automotive industry, although lessons were learned from the COVID-19 pandemic [9]. To deal with the businesses or operations in uncertainty and risky environments, automotive companies must execute some improvements actions over the following to-do list:

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A quick response to explore the emerged situation for a company with an emphasis on negative effects on operations;

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A development of transformational sustainable model/framework to implement in new realities in the post-COVID-19 era;

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An adoption of the developed new sustainable model/framework based on best practices against the current business activities, identifying their priority areas for automotive supply chain sector.

During the early stage of the pandemic, the automotive companies experienced a significant drop in supply and demand for a period, and new restrictions due to the spread of coronavirus across the globe and in Turkey. Facing the situation, it has been experiencing risks and disruptions, which were classified by the authors in the field of supply, demand, manufacturing, information, transformation, and financial risks.

For that reason, the following research questions are developed:

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How does the COVID-19 pandemic affect the company’s operational activities?

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How do we develop a framework to survive in the VUCA environment?

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What were the challenges that the car manufacturer faced during the pandemic?

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What kind of countermeasures or best practices can be implemented in the automotive company to reduce the risk of potential crises and disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic?

Therefore, the aim of the study is to explore an impact of the COVID-19 era on supply chain operations of Turkish automotive company through the development of a framework for improving operational activities to survive in the VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) environment. Further, the future framework is designed to ensure resilience and best practices. To better understand the aim of the research and find answers, some hypotheses are urged/formulated:

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H1: The COVID-19 pandemic caused several disruptions (shortage of raw materials/spare parts, availability of transportation, availability of labors, demand fluctuations, increase of sick leaves, new health and safety regulations) in the organization which negatively had an impact on operational activities.

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H2: Employees do not feel safe working in the production area or office due to the possibility of COVID-19 infection.

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H3: There is a correlation between working from home and reliability in supply chain operations.

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H4: There is a correlation between operational readiness of the pandemic and implementing new technologies to support employees during the COVID time.

These analyses will be performed based on a case study from a Turkish automotive manufacturer company. These best practices might support supply chain decision makers in their future formulations of strategies towards Sustainability 4.0. In this context, the paper develops a Sense–Adapt–Transform framework for the best practices to survive in the VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) environment. To achieve this aim, the authors applied a mixed-methods research approach, qualitative and quantitative analysis within three different employee categories (e.g., manufacturing shop floor employees, logistics and warehouse employees and managerial department employees). The underlying motivation for the research is the vulnerabilities of supply chain operations as the effect of the COVID-related disruption, making it impossible to invest in automotive supply chain, further affecting global financial systems.

Quantitative analyses are considered as a well-suited technique to analyze the collected data from the Turkish manufacturer’s survey providing statistical-based results. Qualitative research method was used for the case study research to investigate disruptions and taken measures as well as measures to be considered in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure the continuity of the company.

The novelty of the paper relies on the development of an overall framework for implementing sustainable practices into company’s operations based on the VUCA environment.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 depicts a literature review on supply chains across countries and best practices for managing the COVID-19 outbreak. Section 3 describes an applied methodological approach and material used in the paper, while Section 4 presents the research results. Further, the main findings are discussed in Section 5 and provide the study limitations with suggestions for future research. Finally, the conclusion of the research with remarks for best practices is given in Section 6.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Impacts of the COVID-19 to Supply Chains across Countries

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of global manufacturing companies to their supply chains and operating activities as one of the significant disruption events of the past two decades. Several companies have already declared bankruptcy because of the crisis, and even others around the world are on the edge of a failure. It has demonstrated that major companies underestimate the need for sustainable and resilient operations before it becomes serious. Most of the global companies that have offices and production facilities in China were impacted first by the pandemic. This negatively affected the companies financially with further losses in earnings and revenues. In Turkey, the situation does not seem so different from the situation in the rest of the world. The projected growth of GDP in Turkey was forecasted to be reduced from 7.1% year-on-year in the fourth quarter to 2.3% for the entire year due to new restrictions and curfews on the several industries [10]. Some of the major industries are affected by COVID-19, but they are not just limited to technology, manufacturing, and automotive companies.

The global impact is significant for supply chain disrupted by the pandemic due to many reasons [4]. These industries have been significantly impacted due to their dependence on China as a global supply chain center over the last decades. For instance, Wuhan, the core point of the COVID-19 outbreak is a center of major manufacturing companies where auto-components and semiconductor companies supply essential parts to the global automobile manufacturers such as General Motors, Hyundai, Toyota, Volkswagen, Honda, etc. [11]. Moreover, any disruption in China and India affected the other companies in the globe [8]. Any kind of restriction such as plant shutdown or supply delay in China has a significant impact on the companies in related industries in the other regions of the world. Most of the manufacturers and suppliers have already informed their global automotive manufacturer companies for delay in the deliveries due to plant closures, border closures and other restrictions reasons. Due to these disruptions, both supply and demand for vehicles affected the entire supply chain. Therefore, automotive manufacturing companies are experiencing bigger inconveniences than other companies due to the COVID-19 outbreak, which is the reason behind the temporary shutdown of most of the manufacturing plants in other countries that were leading to the lack of components in their supply chains and production. It causes a loss in earnings and losses in production such that a company could not continue its operational activities. In Turkey and most of the other countries, the solution for most of the cases is to shut down all of the production temporarily, which would cause financial damage to the company. To prevent the financial consequences or reduce the impact, it is necessary for organizations to come to terms with the pandemic or crisis scenarios [12,13]. A well organized and informed organization would be able to manage the situation without the consequence of a pandemic. Furthermore, as with the problems involving the COVID-19 pandemic, the unavailability and lack of prior data due to the modernity of the situation is a major issue which also ensures that the overall impacts on companies remain uncertain, and the authors present deeply current observations. However, the authors will not be able to see the final implications until the pandemic is defeated or comes close to the end.

2.2. Best Sustainable Practices for Managing the COVID-19 Outbreak

The COVID-19 outbreak is a multidimensional problem that concerns the fundamental aspects of corporate sustainability, which may be described as the balanced consideration of social, economic, and environmental aspects. Despite the close relationship between corporate sustainability and the COVID-19 crisis management, managing the organizations during the pandemic with the sustainability practices has not yet been studied enough in the literature. The sustainable operational activities in place are mostly unknown, and they are generally discussed through advice or general considerations instead of practical studies or precise examples. In the periods of crisis, the extreme uncertainty, and future threats for the organizations are increased [14]. The organizations must reconsider practices to acquire new capabilities and implement new circular solutions to address the challenges of economic, environmental, and social aspects to have sustainable operations [15]. Moreover, the new findings mentioned that the risk of infection rate of coronavirus is linked to organization’s operational activities (e.g., production, logistics, supply chain operations, etc.). The managers are responsible for preventing and minimizing the spread of the coronavirus by implementing the best sustainable practices in the organization. In this circumstance, an assessment of best practices in other organizations can allow them to manage the crisis more effectively and take actions that have proven elsewhere to succeed. These practices essentially revolve around interdependent themes such as risk management and identification, planning operations, human resource management and organizational activities. The practices would be more impactful by collaborating with several stakeholders (e.g., nongovernmental organizations, government, other companies, and partners) to generate long-term over the short-term objectives.

The pre- and post-COVID-19 era brings new opportunities for more sustainable business transition [16], as well as the need to enhance the supply chain network and production systems [9]. The consequences of the disruptive events have a direct effect on the operations such as raw material shortage, delivery delays, lack of spare parts, reduced labor capacity, etc. These disruptions are reported in the downstream supply chain, which caused the ripple effect and a reduction in service level performance, revenue, and process productivity of the company [17], even impacting the global supply chain [3]. In the literature, Tan et al., (2019) distinguishes several decision support systems for developing a resilient manufacturing process. Moreover, Ivanov (2020) [3] developed a model for determining the impact of a pandemic on the supply chain network and production resilience. It is evident that the COVID-19 scenario offers an opportunity for the development of a flexible and resilient production process to preserve the economic, environmental, and social sustainability of the organizations [9]. Economic sustainability is directly related to the social and environmental aspects. In general, the social and environmental sustainability practices provide the results of economic sustainability. These practices allow the organization to be in better financial condition. Therefore, the best practices were combined as socio-economic and eco-environmental practices. Experts, governments, corporate leaders, and policymakers are all concerned about the disaster’s negative impact on company operations and industrial policy. Thus, organizations are attempting to address the challenges and issues associated with three aspects of sustainability [18]. Therefore, there have been various initiatives toward transformation in organizations, such as health and safety practices, employee well-being, efficient communication strategies in healthcare, community safety, remote working conditions, and skill improvement [11,19]. These are some of the social sustainability initiatives adopted by organizations to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 and preserve social sustainability. Due to high risks on the labor capacity in operations, the organizations had to regulate the new normal for production systems and follow essential operating measures to maintain social distancing on the job. Hence, the companies have been following social distancing at sites and offices to prevent the spread of the virus. The next significant challenge belongs to extra time which is needed for the organizations to be able to achieve productivity targets of employees by following the post COVID-19 regulations in the production system. Environmental and economic aspects are major pillars of sustainability which deals with limited resources to reduce operational resources and minimize the waste to preserve the environment and reduce the operation cost [20]. Detailed best practices of socio-economic sustainability and eco-environmental sustainability that were derived from literature are presented in

Table 1. Socio-economic sustainability initiatives and practices derived from literature.

Socio-Economic Sustainability Practices
Best Practices	Operational Description	References
Safety and health practices for employees and wellbeing of suppliers	To minimize the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies should focus on mental health, health monitoring at site or offices, and the safety of their employees as well as wellbeing of suppliers during and after the COVID-19 outbreak.	[18,21,22]
Training and skill improvement	The companies should provide tools or platforms to train the employees during and after the pandemic.	[9,18]
Informing the employees for the new regulations	To reduce the transmission of the COVID-19, at workplace, knowledge management regarding social distance, personal cleanliness, and wearing masks in the workplace should be implemented.	[11,21,23]
Diverse portfolio of suppliers	To reduce supply chain operation’s risks and future threats, the companies should reduce the reliance on a limited number of suppliers during and after the COVID-19.	[18,21,22]
Remote working option and conditions	Companies should encourage remote working during the crises to ensure the employees’ health and safety. Moreover, the support and conditions for working remotely should be provided to employees for the ergonomic workplace.	[9,18,21]
Improving the company’s or brand’s social image	Companies should employ and enhance the social sustainability initiatives to improve the firm’s image and prestige in society.	[24,25]
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs	Companies should have a budget for the CSR programs to apply social and environmental initiatives for society.	[26]

and

Table 2. Eco-environmental sustainability initiatives and practices derived from literature.

Eco-Environmental Sustainability Practices
Best Practices	Operational Description	References
Training programs to enhance awareness of environmental sustainability	Training programs or social projects can motivate the employees and the community to enhance their awareness and knowledge about environmental sustainability to achieve better environmental performance, management and employees must be professionally trained in the significance of environmental policies.	[27]
Develop strong legislation framework to cope COVID-19	The strategic approach toward sustainability has expanded beyond what is demanded by law. During the COVID-19, tough regulations were followed at the organizations to implement sustainable practices in environmental aspect such as safe and clean operations.	[3,27]
Remanufacturing and 3R approach (Reuse-Reduce-Recycle)	The availability of recycled materials and goods for reuse and remanufacture creates additional sources of supply and contributes to supply chain diversification. Moreover, companies should implement a 3R approach on products, materials, and resources within and across supply chains. Reduce resource wastage; encourage sufficiency; enhance reuse, recycling of products and components.	[28]
Increasing the practices of internet of things (IoT) in operations	IoT and automation technologies will be prioritized to avoid the spread of future pandemics and improve supply chain efficiency. Because the use of robots in manufacturing transforms the supply chain to autonomous which guarantees safety, and boosts productivity during the COVID-19.	[26,28,29]
Additive manufacturing practices	Additive manufacturing or 3D printing practices are cost efficient and increase production flexibility to support the sudden changes in supply and demand during the COVID-19 pandemic.	[30,31,32]
Implementing new technologies to have sustainable operations	Innovative technology adoption (e.g., cyber-security, big data and analytics, block-chain, IoT, simulation, etc.) is essential for the companies to implement in their operations to reduce the operating costs, improve service, increase efficiency.	[29,33,34,35,36]

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Having the solid background, the authors’ motivation was to depict an impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on supply chain operations in the automotive company. An evaluation of a level of impacted production and performance was performed by conducting diagnostic survey research. The authors also envisage some improvements by planning a strategy to build operational activities in the entire supply chain that are resilient to unforeseen disruptions and threats in a more sustainable way. The study will help embody this motivation into a case study analysis because it should provide better understanding of impacts of the pandemic on operations of the organization, along with a short- to long-term impact on the acquisition and supply of goods and services.

3. Materials and Methods

A case study approach was performed to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on operational activities in the automotive industry and to explore company performance. In this context, an automotive company was selected very carefully to gather valid and reliable data. The research started with research questions and primary hypotheses that were established by analyzing literature reviews on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic disruptions on manufacturing companies. Further, the study was supported by using a case study research method [37,38]. Because of this, a company—one of the leading automobile manufacturers in the globe as well as in Turkey with a local production—was chosen to be analyzed based on a case study example. Therefore, the accessibility to involve employees and managers from this company in the research was one of the crucial factors or challenges. Moreover, the authors’ inspiration was to show an impact of the pandemic on a wider perspective within different functions of the supply chain operations.

3.1. Methodology Applied

In this research, a mixed methods were used in four phases, as presented in Figure 1.

Phase 1: There are two basic formats for qualitative research: unstructured and semi-structured interviews. An unstructured format has its benefits in the fact that it allows truly elaborate and liberal responses, as it usually only focuses on one core main question. However, understanding the interview’s results can be difficult and challenging because it is difficult to describe the correlation between the respondent’s answer and the research question or hypothesis, as well as its connection to the literature. As a result, it was designated as the nonpreferred alternative in this study. The semi-structured interview approach was chosen, which aimed for a certain level of dynamic dialogues between researchers and respondents while also being anchored in an interview guide. Flexibility was desired so that interviewers could express their opinions on a variety of topics based on what they have thought was relevant. Most of the interview questions and subsequent guidance were open-ended, reflecting the themes that were included in the research purpose and questions. The interviewees were selected based on their work experience and role within the organization. Some of the focus areas were set on positions such as production manager, supply chain manager, procurement/purchasing manager, and directors as suitable interviewees for this research study. The possible interviewees were considered suitable if they had at least five years of work experience, have managed the COVID-19 outbreak, and had insights into the company’s strategic decisions about risk mitigation measures for operational and organizational activities. As a result, the interviews were conducted with four managers. The eligibility of each interviewee was confirmed before the actual interviews to verify the sample’s appropriateness. Interviewees who have fulfilled these characteristics were considered the best appropriate to answer the research question due to their knowledge of a variety of company operations. They can also give in-depth information related to the study. Appendix A contains the flowchart of the interview and guidance with questions.

Phase 2: Formulation of survey questions and potential hypotheses to be verified in the considered company. The questionnaire has been prepared by considering the impact of the COVID-19 on operational activities. Furthermore, two survey questionnaires were designed for the employees and managers. In the research, the parameters for selecting the appropriate survey respondents (sample) for data collection is focused on the standardized nonprobability sampling based on the certain structure of the research study. During the data collection process, the first approach used was purposeful sampling. This can be supported as the survey respondents (employees) work at case study companies during COVID-19 and have a first-hand view correlated with initiatives in operational activities. Given the ambiguity of questions across the semi-structured interview, the research’s hypotheses were formulated in the Introduction as null forms.

Phase 3: Exploration of theories on methods (descriptive analysis) in a construction of survey. The authors investigated the case study company to discover new aspects within the theory to compare what measures the chosen company have taken and are taking to ensure the operational activities to continue its operational activities during the pandemic.

Phase 4: Analysis and discussion of results. In this part of the research, the case study company was given a conceptual framework and the recommendations which will increase efficiency in the operational activities and possible strategies for the company to mitigate the risks for the potential future disruptions. The narrative analysis was used for the data analysis of the semi-structured interview. The important aspects of the interviewee’s response were highlighted. Throughout the online interviews, the validity and long-term feasibility of the proposed framework were discussed.

The descriptive statistics were prepared in MS Excel spreadsheet and presented with the aim of understanding the framework and characteristics of the participants. The data analysis allows the authors to deeply examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on a company’s operational activities. The primary dependent variables were selected as the operational risks which include the business operational activities such as production, product development, supply chain management, procurement, logistics, human resources, empowerment, and information/business reporting. However, the dilemma of which indicator or measures affected the company’s operational activities and performance during the COVID-19 outbreak is difficult and challenging due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis that might generate new uncertainties for the company [2].

3.2. Identification of Sampling Size

Purposeful sampling was deemed appropriate because its aim is to select information-rich cases that provide a detailed understanding of the research questions [39]. In addition, the homogeneous sampling approach was used in two distinct levels during the selection of the sample. Initially, the survey was carried out in two groups depending on organizational rank, access to knowledge and experience level. These two groups are employees and managers. At a broader stage, a homogenous sampling method was used to share general characteristics about the experience at case study company and to share the same daily impressions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Moreover, representative sampling has been used to analyze the survey statistically. Representative sampling can be used for situations where there are large populations that can be impossible to reach [40]. The respondents were selected within a certain number and departments. Moreover, it was mentioned that the author deployed two surveys for separate groups: employees and managers. It is possible to obtain information and observation on a targeted population by using a representative sampling technique [41,42]. Employees were divided into three categories according to their level of commitment. Depending on engagement, different perspectives on the same problem can be achieved giving answers which, consequently, might affect the employees and the organization.

According to the theory, a larger sample size should lead to more accurate and representative findings; however, when it comes to surveying a larger target population, large samples are not always better [42], because the sheer size of the sample does not ensure that it will accurately reflect a target population. Therefore, the representative sample is chosen, for a limited subset group of participants, that aims to reflect specific characteristics demonstrated in a target population. In addition, the representative sampling technique provides a quicker, simpler, and more accessible way of obtaining accurate and statistically significant findings.

The research sample size was 174 participants. The respondents filled in questionnaires in the paper. Most participants were working in one of the three main operational departments (e.g., manufacturing shop floor employees (63%), logistic or warehouse employees (24.1%) and managerial department employees (12.7%)). The detailed sample structure is presented in Figure 2.

3.3. Descriptive Statistics

The data obtained from each questionnaire was examined to test research hypotheses. Several variables have been selected in accordance with the literature research. The data is used to generate descriptive statistics by using Microsoft Excel (Version 16.58, Burak Eldem, Warsaw, Poland). Descriptive statistics are used to illustrate the fundamental features of the data in a study. The sequence of the statistics is presented as the order of the survey questions by highlighting the most interesting results. The questionnaire includes the categorical data where the responses are evaluated such as positive “Yes” or negative “No”.

3.4. Construction of Questionnaire Survey

Two survey questionnaires were designed for the employees and managers which included 26 common and 9 additional questions for managers only. The question types were three in total (e.g., short response questions, multiple choice questions, checkboxes). Furthermore, the questionnaire for employees and managers differs in terms of survey sections. The questionnaire for employees had two sections and there was an additional and detailed third section for managers. The survey was conducted from 25 September till 8 October in Turkey. The responses were collected on 9 October 2021. The surveys for both groups (employees and managers) have the same questions for the first two sections of the questionnaires. Therefore, the first two sections have no notable change in terms of responses from employees or managers, and the third section will be discussed in further considerations in managerial strategies and digital transformation at the case study company. The third section of the questionnaires provided a better understanding of the managerial level and countermeasure actions on company’s risk strategy as well as the company’s innovative technology level.

Interviews and diagnostic surveys are the major data gathering method for this study because they allow the authors to obtain more in-depth understanding of the subject. After the data collection, organization of the spreadsheets was completed, and the data were checked to prepare for the analysis. However, both questionnaires have related questions except the third section. Therefore, the first two sections of the questionnaires were merged for the employees’ and managers’ answers because the questions are similar in these sections. The first two sections of both questionnaires—Appendix B for employees and managers—contain similar and linked questions, and they generated no considerably different findings. As a result, results from both groups were regarded in subsequent analyses.

4. Results

The paper presented results based on the performed survey to test formulated hypotheses about supply chain, logistics and production systems disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the major findings was verification of how the considered company’s supply chain and its production system dealt with during the pandemic. Therefore, the output of this observation allowed the authors to focus on company’s weaknesses during the COVID-19.

The key findings of testing hypotheses are as follows:

• The analyzed company provided proper training and briefing to the employees. A total of 85.06% of the employees have received briefings or trainings regarding the COVID-19 precautions, and 14.94% of the employees were not aware of that. In detail, managerial employees were more fully aware of briefings than the employees.
• A total of 81.03% of the employees agreed that the company reacted quickly to COVID-19 measures. The rest of the employees (18.96%) did not agree in response to the measures of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The working hours were affected for several reasons. The participants reported 50.57% as “reduced”, 19.54% as “no significant change“ and 29.89% as “increased”, regarding their working hours during the pandemic.
• A total of 68.97% of the employees reported “no significant change” in the scope of their duties, while 26.44% of them reported “increased” and 4.60% of the employees declared “reduced” in their assigned tasks.
• Most of the employees agreed that the company implemented new technologies/solutions during the pandemic.
• The sick leave rates are 41.38% of the employees accounted as “yes” and 58.62% answered as “no”. More than 50% of manufacturing shop floor employees responded with “yes”.
• Due to the pandemic situation, employees were starting to feel concern about losing their jobs more than managerial employees. A total of 88.28% of the manufacturing shop floor employees and 85.71% of the logistics or warehouse employees answered that they felt concerned about losing their job during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Employees did not feel safe working in the production area. A total of 81.08% of the manufacturing shop floor employees, 78.57% of the logistics and warehouse employees and 14.29% of the managerial department employees worried about their work in the production area.
• A total of 70.27% of the manufacturing shop floor employees and 73.80% of the logistics and warehouse employees reported as they violated the social distance rule due to the necessities of working in the production area.
• According to responses, 77.65% of the employees responded with “decreased slightly” and 20.7% responded with “decreased significantly” for the production performance level during the pandemic.
• The company increased the stock level during the pandemic. A total of 66.28% of the employees responded with “increased slightly” and 22.09% with “not changed”.
• Demand fluctuation increased during the pandemic. A total of 84.48% of the employees responded with “increased” in demand variability and 10.34% with “remained stable”.
• Raw material and spare part shortages were the main disruptions during the pandemic. A total of 90.80% of the employees considered that the analyzed company’s operational activities performance has declined due to shortage of raw materials during the COVID-19 pandemic. The rest (9.20%) of the employees did not consider this effect.
• The company’s operations were affected by the restriction of transportation. A total of 92.53% of the employees have reported that operations have been affected by unavailability of transportation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Due to safety reasons such as sick leave, the availability of labor was reduced. A total of 92.53% agreed about the unavailability of labor during the pandemic. A total of 7.47% of the employees did not agree.
• The company applied a work from home approach to eligible employees due to work conditions. However, 45.40% of the employees did not work from home during the pandemic. The majority of them are manufacturing shop floors employees and logistics or warehouse employees.
• Managerial employees had few main concerns of working remotely during the pandemic. With 36.73% of responses, the most concern is “mental health of employees” and 26.53% is “lack of communication between teams”.
• New training module about cybersecurity implemented due to adaption of remote working conditions during the pandemic. A total of 100.00% of the managerial department employees agreed.
• The hiring process for a certain period during the pandemic. A total of 90.48% of the managerial department employees reported agreement.
• The company was not prepared well before the pandemic spread around the globe and Turkey. A total of 61.90% of the managers agreed that the risk management principles were less than projected before the pandemic situation.
• New automation technologies or tolls were implemented to increase productivity during the pandemic. A total of 54.55% of the employees agreed that 50–75% of operations were automated to prevent the loss of productivity of the organization during the pandemic.

5. Discussion

The COVID-19 outbreak can be considered as low-probability, high-impact disruption risk [40]. During the interviews, it became evident that a pandemic did not cause a single supply chain interruption but rather several disruptions. The COVID-19 pandemic is responsible for these disturbances, either directly or indirectly. Infections cause it directly, and countermeasures to stop the virus spreading cause it indirectly. The following section discussed the interpretation of key findings of research hypotheses.

5.1. Interpretation of the Key Findings

Considering interpretation of results achieved in terms of each hypothesis, key findings are as follows:

Hypothesis 1.

The company’s production and supply operations were affected by the disruptions such as shortage of raw materials/spare parts, availability of transportation, availability of labor, demand fluctuations, new health and safety regulations, etc.

These disruptions are presented here in detail.

• Shortage of raw material and spare parts: The production and supply disruptions have been driving by sourcing or material shortages especially on shortage of semi-conductor during the pandemic. However, the analyzed company was able to maintain its standards in production without suffering too much loss due to its market superiority and power.
• Availability of transportation: The closure of borders has triggered a series of events which had a significant impact on the logistic and transportation industry. Transportation modes and courier services have become less obligated by traditional practices; instead, alternative business models and practices become more acceptable during the pandemic. Unavailability of cargo transportation on the demand has led to a significant increase in lead times for the analyzed company. Therefore, production and supply operations have been affected by the unpredicted COVID-19 pandemic due to availability of transportation (92.53% of respondents) because of previously mentioned setbacks, e.g., border closure, restrictions on the import and export, shortage of truck drivers, demand fluctuations in several industries.
• Availability of labor: The governments and organizations have applied some countermeasures such as health and safety regulations and social distance rules to prevent the spread of coronavirus. A total of 92.53% of the employees, which consists of the majority of the manufacturing shop floor employees infected with COVID-19, work closer to each other in the production facility, while the managerial employees could work in more isolated areas such as office or at home. These regulations, social distance rules and increase in sick leaves cause a reduction in the number of people per shift in the production facility of the automotive manufacturer.
• Demand fluctuations: A total of 84.48% of the employees responded that demand variability is increased in the analyzed company. Because of the COVID-19 lockdown, demand for various services and goods in the industry has dropped significantly since March 2020 in tourism, automotive, energy, metal, electronics, and a few other non-food-related retail sectors [43]. Most of the industries were decreased based on changes in overall output, which are influenced by delays in raw material acquisition and government regulations, implementing curfews, halted production, closing offices, dealerships, and concerns about losing jobs as well as the fear of a recession.

Hypothesis 2.

The company’s manufacturing shop floor and logistic warehouse employees did not keep the workplace safe and healthy.Moreover, 70.27% of the manufacturing shop floor employees and 73.80% of the logistics and warehouse employees reported as they violated the social distance rule due to the necessities of working in the production facility. Therefore, employees were concerned about the possibility of the COVID-19 infection which affected the well-being and mental health of the employees. Contrarily, the managerial employees felt safe working at the office environment which has fewer people working due to remote working options and efficient protection from COVID-19 infection.

Hypothesis 3.

There is a negative correlation between remote working challenges and reliability and performance of the operations, which is indicated with various challenges such as unsafe work environment, lack of technology infrastructure, cybersecurity problems and limited communication channels. Despite the fact that most of the upper-level work was done in remote work conditions, the company’s operational activities were still heavily reliant on physical labor. According to the employee categories, 77.08% of manufacturing shop floor employees declared that they had difficulties while working from home during the pandemic. Therefore, manufacturing shop employees’ work performance has been affected through the distance working restriction, partly remote working, and disruption in their working schedule. This makes it difficult to create full isolation, which required increasing the necessary precautions to avoid coronavirus infections. However, managerial employees did not have the same difficulties as manufacturing shop floor employees and logistic employees.

Hypothesis 4.

There is a positive correlation between operational readiness and implementing new technologies or solutions to support employees. Automated operations prevent the loss of productivity of an organization during this crisis.

5.2. Identified Risks and Problems in the Organization

The semi-structured interview and questionnaire results provided an understanding of the main problems within the company’s supply chain operations during the pandemic. The case company has experienced significant challenges during the last year, mid-March 2020 until late April 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first problem during the COVID-19 breakout was that the industry and the considered company were not ready for the consequences of the disruptions and risks. The managerial team did not expect the coronavirus to spread and become a worldwide pandemic nor were there signs that it would. Instead, it was seen as local or regional problem that had a temporary impact on the Asian region. However, the spread of coronavirus was significantly increased.

The empirical findings show that the case study company already has been working with risk identification and mitigation both proactively and reactively within the supply and manufacturing side of the operations. It is very crucial for the company to identify and sense the risks to prevent next possible disruptions. However, company’s operations are tailored as just-in-time (JIT), which means low inventories and short lead times due to reactive industry characteristics. Therefore, it is difficult to proactively identify risks in operations. The risk types and disruptions can be named in several groups for the organization. The identified risk groups and priorities are presented in

Table 3. Risk identification groups and prioritization.

Risk Priority	Risk Identification Group
High	Supply risk Demand risk Manufacturing risk Information risk
Medium	Transportation risk
Low	Financial risk

.

Considering the identified risk groups, their descriptions are provided as follows:

• Supply risk: During the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been shortage on raw material and spare parts that affected the supply of the production. For instance, the supply of raw materials such as steel and certain plastics and semiconductors were affected during the pandemic time. Longer lead times have affected the supply of these materials which were used in the manufacturing of goods at the company’s production facility. However, the case company received the first indications of a shortage in semiconductors in December 2020. In the beginning of 2021, it was certain that the shortage of semiconductors will affect its operations in the following 12 months. In general, the company has avoided most of the disruptions by micromanaging them to sustain the operational activities in the production facility.
• Demand risk: The analyzed company experienced a significant change in demand during the pandemic. The fluctuation in demand causes uncertainty and makes it difficult to plan production. In the beginning of the pandemic, the organization faced a big drop in demand. Due to the demand and the spread of the COVID-19 virus, production was suspended for some time. During May, the demand started to recover. After the recovery in demand and production, it turned back to its operations faster than predicted.
• Manufacturing risk: At the beginning of the pandemic, coronavirus contamination rate was extremely high, and it was risky for the employees’ health and safety to continue operations in the facilities. The majority of the Chinese suppliers and some other suppliers from Asia started to halt their productions, which affected the essential components to be used in car manufacturing. These disruptions in both supply and demand have caused risk in the company’s production. The reduction in demand supply shortages led to lower volume and suspended production for some time, which resulted in a high labor cost compared to what was produced. The resource use was at a low level at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic due to demand and supply disruption. Moreover, the company has set priorities to have a safe workplace despite the pandemic with minimum impact on production. The company was following the governmental and local authorities to eliminate the risk of spreading the virus in the facility, to eliminate the high risk of sick leave rates, but also to create a safe workplace environment for employees’ health and safety.
• Data and Information risk: The most crucial part of the operation is correcting the information flow. However, during the pandemic, the disruption in the information flow at case study organization has been challenged. Because the company’s relationship with suppliers is mostly with tier 1 and tier 2 suppliers, the company needs to rely on them to manage upstream suppliers. It creates a lack of visibility in the supply chain operations such as delays in the information flow or information being lost. The consequences might cause damage to the company’s operation. Therefore, transparency is important to sense the risk and quick mitigation of the disruptions. The Industry 4.0 enabling technologies would help the company to prevent such risks in the future.
• Transportation risk: From an operational standpoint, the COVID-19 pandemic has had one of the greatest impacts on transportation for case study organizations. Due to COVID-19 government restrictions, the countries closed their borders, an act that caused the transport capacity of the shipping companies to limit their supply and delay for a certain time. As mentioned, the automotive industry is characterized by JIT, whose delivery times and accuracy are significantly important to consider. Transport problems have increased during the pandemic, transport prices have increased, and the closed borders have resulted in more extreme management when crossing borders.
• Financial risk: The financial risks of the company are associated with the decrease in sales and disruptions in supply and demand during the beginning of 2020 when the COVID-19 spread across the world and especially hit the company. In addition, due to semiconductor shortage, the company has been troubling to support the demand which created a bottleneck in production which limits the amount of production that the company produce and sell.

The risks and disruptions are mitigated differently depending on how they are assessed by the situation in the company. Each group of risk types mentioned above has different identified problems to solve in the long term. The organization should continue to work with long-term improvement action plans to overcome the root cause of identified problems so that it would not be repeated in the operations.

Table 4. Identified problems and improvement actions.

Identified Problems at the Organization during the COVID-19 Pandemic	Improvement Actions
	Re-Design Supply Chain	Industry 4.0	Heathy and Safety	Risk Management	Automated Production	Forecasting and Monitoring	Employee’s Well-Being	Sustainable Production	Trainings and Skills	Engagement	Communication
Concern of health and safety of employees	x	x	x	x	x		x		x	x	x
New COVID-19 regulations	x		x	x		x	x				x
Shortage of raw materials and spare parts	x			x		x					x
Unavailability of transportation	x			x		x					x
Unavailability of workforce	x	x		x	x	x		x	x		x
Halted production	x	x		x	x	x		x	x		x
Semi-automated production	x	x		x	x	x		x	x		x
Demand fluctuations	x			x		x					x
Limitation of remote work		x	x	x			x		x	x	x
Well-being of employees			x				x		x	x	x
Lack of risk management policy				x		x					x
Lack of new technology infrastructure	x	x		x	x	x		x	x		x

illustrates the priority of the risks and recommended improvement actions in reference to identified problems.

5.3. Countermeasures Taken to Implement Safe Working Environment in the Organization

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the company implemented workplace health and safety measures. The process of regulations was guided by the Turkish Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization, and it was carried out in line with the Occupational Health and Safety Law.

The following practices have been implemented for a safe working environment in the company’s production facility:

• All of the production and rest areas, offices and meeting rooms have been disinfected. Work desks are also among the items that are disinfected every week. The office items such as tables, keyboards and personal items have been cleaned at least three times a day by the cleaning staff. Moreover, a new initiative rule was introduced for the cleaning staff to clean the handrails, door handles and seat armrests six times a day.
• Cleaning of public areas (e.g., office, cafeteria, toilet, and locker rooms) was scheduled on a regular basis.
• Cleaning protocols for production areas were developed on a daily and weekly basis.
• Hand disinfectant stations were installed in the facility.
• Daily health survey has been applied before entering the campus. If any of the survey questions were answered as “yes”, the health unit contacted the respondent and gave the right assistance. In any case, the health state of the employee was checked regularly.
• Noncontact temperature monitoring was established at the entrances to the campuses. The employees whose measurement results were above normal were referred to the medical center on the campus first, then to the appropriate hospital. The health status of the workers was followed.
• The visiting rules were updated as internal and external visits have been suspended. If it is essential to meet with an outside visitor, entry procedures were followed with the contest of the authorities. The visitors were only allowed in special designated areas.
• The social distancing rules were applied on seating places for all the locations in the workplaces and cafeterias. In addition, a project has been applied in the shared areas where the workers must scan the QR codes. When the workers arrived in the location associated for them, they were requested to notify the seating place by scanning the QR codes on the application. In case of any contamination, the employees were isolated.

It was mentioned above about the general countermeasures that have been applied in the case company’s facility. To summarize, all the shared areas (e.g., cafeteria, office, toilet, locker rooms, meeting rooms, shuttles, etc.), workshops, indoor and outdoor areas were disinfected. The ventilation system was used according to the health regulation to prevent COVID-19 contamination. The informative contents (e.g., booklet, posters, videos, training, etc.) have been developed and distributed in the facility to prevent the spread of the COVID-19. They have been increasing awareness and engagement between the employees. The daily basis rules were determined to be used in all areas to adapt to the new normal.

5.4. Sense–Adapt–Transform Framework to Survive during COVID-19 Pandemic

The companies have unique dynamic capabilities, which is determined by creating and reconfiguring the internal and external competencies to manage the changing conditions while still being competitive. In response to disruptions and significant challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, a conceptual framework was formulated to help the case study company and possible companies in the automotive industry. The framework contains new initiatives to enable the transition towards more sustainable improvements in the company. The framework is represented in Figure 3. It was developed based on a sustainable approach to reduce the impact of COVID-19 on operational activities, in which one should ‘sense’ the different challenges, ‘adopt’ best practices to overcome challenges and ‘transform’ its operational activities/or processes to develop long-term sustainability values.

Sense: It is the first phase of the framework which helps the organization to keep operating by sensing any potential disruptions or challenges before ensuring the continuity of the organization. Communication is an essential factor of this phase with subcategories such as data, information, and knowledge. Thus, it is categorized under and named the ‘sense’ phase. One of the key findings from this study was how sustainability developments and practices are understood and implemented among the operational activities within the entire supply chain. Moreover, if there are any disruptions or future threats to manage in order to be able to keep the operations, it is necessary to have sufficient and/or proper communication internally and externally. It would be difficult for companies to start implementing best sustainable practices without a defined vision. Therefore, once the vision is defined and agreed upon on the new initiatives or actions, the strategy needs to be communicated across the organization. Therefore, risk management is a very essential part of this phase beforehand to start actions for future disruptions or risks. ‘Sense’ acts as a first phase because the essential aspects are understood and implemented in this phase; afterwards, ‘adapting’ and ‘transforming’ can be shaped in further steps.

Adapt: The second phase of the framework provides an insight for the companies to adopt the new normal by implementing new initiatives to stabilize and improve productivity by reducing the company’s losses. The major categories such as ‘organizational’ and ‘resource’ play a critical role in this phase, with subcategories of production and supply chain strategy, finance, leadership, company culture and social aspects and physical resources as shown in Figure 4. A transition to sustainability practices happens in this implementation or adopting phase. Adopting and building new foundations and business models may provide us many new opportunities for enhancing sustainability value in the organization, and even a shift towards a digital transformational innovation model.

Transform: The final phase of the framework is transforming the new initiatives in everyday process or activities which help to stabilize and increase productivity. This phase is important for companies to adopt and transform sustainable practices to have long-term sustainability values. Moreover, it contains the micro-foundations such as ‘collaborations’ and ‘technology’ as subcategories. The new technology implementation strategy and the collaboration with partners are two essential categories to start transformation of the company towards sustainability. Figure 4 represents the improvement of tasks in each phase with variety of subcategories and main categories. The phase “Sense” contains three subcategories (e.g., data, information, and knowledge) under the communication category. In this section of the flow, the organization should implement structured data communication to sense any future disruptions or risks before and during the crisis. It will enable us to secure the company’s operations. The next phase is “Adapt” which contains five subcategories (production and supply chain, financial, leadership, social aspects, and physical resources) under the organizational structure and resources main categories. The information provided in the previous phase helps the company to manage the disruptions by taking actions beforehand and adapting these changes in the organization. It is best to foresee what is coming to prepare and adapt the changes to the new normal. The last phase, “Transform”, aims to enable the companies to transform the new initiatives or improvements to daily activities or responsibilities to stabilize and continuously improve to increase the productivity. There are three subcategories (internal and external communications, stakeholder involvement, 4.0 enabling technologies) and two main categories which are collaboration and digital and technology. These factors will help the company to transform its operations into sustainability. Figure 4 shows the opportunities of conceptional framework with resilience factors to provide sustainability benefits.

This framework embodies the “sense–adapt–transform” approach to ensure the sustainable 4.0 operational activities and production systems in automotive companies. The framework illustrates the challenges as an input to “sense” to be able to react quickly to possible risks in the future. The new initiatives or best practices in automotive companies provides an insight to “adapt” the new normal during the crisis. After the adopting phase, the best practices are “transformed” in everyday processes or activities which will help to achieve long-term sustainable value in every organization.

5.5. Best Practice Actions

One of the research objectives is to find the best practices to implement in company’s operations, which can be valuable by using supply chain risk strategies to mitigate supply chain risks (supply risks, demand risks, manufacturing risks, transportation risks and financial risks) in the period of the COVID-19 pandemic and/or further possible disruptions. According to the theoretical implications, the three dimensions of sustainability, including social, environmental, and economic aspects, based on long-term sustainable developments, are considered. Social and environmental sustainability is linked with economic sustainability to achieve sustainable operations. Based on the above sections and discussions through the survey results, the authors recommend some improvement actions to implement sustainable practices into company’s operations.

Sense: It is the first phase of the framework which helps the organization to keep operating by sensing any potential disruptions or challenges before ensuring the continuity of the organization.

• Analyze and monitor information and data internally and externally: It is critical for the organization to sense the possible risk and/or disruptions as soon as possible; thus, it is essential to monitor and analyze certain information and data. It is a fact that companies are monitoring financial information frequently during the pandemic. In addition, some KPIs (e.g., inventory levels, downtime, lead time, etc.) can be beneficial to notice the disruptions in early stage such as COVID-19. It is critical for the company to quickly sense the disruption and have actions; only then can the company secure the operations in such disruptions. Therefore, case study company should focus on creating a team to monitor the further challenges in detail.

Adapt: The second phase of the framework provides an insight for the companies to adapt to the new normal by implementing new initiatives to stabilize and improve productivity by reducing the company’s losses.

• Be flexible to change the operational processes due to any possible risks: Having flexible operations is proven to be a core characteristic of ensuring high resilience during crises such as COVID-19. According to the managerial department employees of the organization, flexibility in operational processes was the key part of mitigating the production loss due to COVID-19 pandemic. Such improvements allow the company to secure revenue loss and enable it to have a fast recovery. However, to make adjustment before the crises, it is vital that the company’s business units (e.g., production, research and development, supply chain operations, etc.) collaborate closely to share knowledge about the operations. It is also noted that not all parts of the process can be flexible. In such cases, countermeasures can be taken according to the possible risks.
• Analyze the governmental regulations and restrictions on a regular basis so that the operational activities can be managed and followed the requirements: In such crises as the COVID-19 pandemic, governments impose containment measures that companies must follow in their facilities. According to the governmental regulations, the company needs to adjust or manage the operational activities. Thus, it is crucial to follow the regulations and have the flexibility to transform the operations as requirements. Moreover, it is a fact that there are a lot of uncertainties of such regulations or policies that made it more challenging to manage the operational activities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Focus not only on internal operations, but also on suppliers, customers, and competitors to accelerate recovery: During the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the companies spent their time on their own operations, trying to solve the internal disruptions concerns. However, it is critical to monitor the status of stakeholder’s operations and financial position. Such risks or issues for suppliers or customers, especially the key suppliers for the operations, could create a harmful impact on the company’s operations. The case study company already experienced this concern with one of its suppliers. Due to shortage of semiconductor parts, production was halted for a certain period. Therefore, regular monitoring and improving communication with suppliers can help the company to notice such disruptions in time to mitigate them easily. Besides suppliers and customers, it is also beneficial to check how the competitors are mitigating the risks.
• Focus on employee’s health and safety as well as well-being, make sure employees are informed, involved, and motivated during such challenging times: The COVID-19 pandemic did not only affect the operational activities of the company, but it also affected the employees in several ways. During the pandemic, working from home became a new normal standard. However, not all the employees were eligible for this possibility due to the necessity of the work; some of them needed to work in the production area or warehouse. Therefore, the organization needs to ensure the safety of the employees who work in the facility. On the other hand, because of the survey and literature, working from home has resulted in increased mental health issues among the employees. Establishing a well-being program for the employees would help to motivate the employees to increase the productivity and efficiency during such crises. Moreover, the company should ensure that the employees are aware of what is happening and what decisions are made. Informing and involving people would increase their willingness to change and be motivated, which is a positive effect for the recovery of the company.
• Improve digitalization of information and data sharing: Information and data sharing is becoming more crucial to promote smooth communication and involvement in COVID-19 frameworks to expand participation and contributions from all departments in the organization. The operational performance originates from the valuable information gathered from data analysis, which enables quick decision making and execution. As a result, a continuous flow of data, analytics, and information is crucial for business output. The companies have internal interactions and external sources to collaborate and use open-source systems from the various sources. Therefore, technological implementations are necessary to preserve communication in any situation, which is extremely crucial when employees are working remotely. Any improvement on communication leads to better integration for organization’s goals [44,45]. Transform: The final phase of the framework is transforming the new initiatives in everyday process or activities which help to stabilize and increase productivity. It is important for the organization to adopt and transform sustainable practices to have long-term sustainability values.
• Re-design resilience supply chain management: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the supply chain has shown the fact that the companies need to re-design their supply chain by identifying shorter lead times with low cost. Moreover, the pandemic proves that the dependence of the globalization of the supply chain is risky in such disruptions as the COVID-19 crisis. Therefore, the supply chain managers and leaders modified the supply chain in their organizations. The re-design process has included several different measures in different stages as shown in

  Table 5. Re-design process in terms of different stages of operations measures.

  Re-Design Resilience Sustainable Operations Measures	Stage of Disruptions during the COVID-19
  	Preparation	First response	Preparation for Recovery	Recovery	Long-Term
  1.1. Resilience-oriented supplier selection	x			x	x
  1.2. Resilience-oriented supply design	x	x	x	x	x
  1.3. Redundancy (reserve inventory)	x	x	x	x	x
  1.4. Simulation, forecasting model	x	x	x	x	x
  1.5. Disaster recovery plan in future	x
  2.1. Information and data sharing	x	x	x	x	x
  2.2. Internal and external collaboration	x	x	x	x	x
  2.3. Risk management principles	x	x	x	x	x
  3.1. Create agile operations				x	x
  3.2 Manufacturing flexibility	x		x	x	x
  3.3. Enhance supply chain visibility	x	x			x
  3.4. Logistics flexibility		x	x	x	x
  3.5. Use of control information system	x		x	x
  4.1. Creating resilience awareness among employees		x	x	x	x
  4.2. Continuity management	x	x	x	x	x
  4.3. Risk identification and assessment	x		x	x	x
  4.4. Cross-training of employees			x
  5.1. Industry 4.0 enabling technologies	x				x
  5.2. Data analytics, machine learning, AI	x			x	x

  . The structure of supply chain design is significantly important in response to the COVID-19 crisis. From the findings, the company should reconsider to create regional supply chain structure rather than globalized structure. This improvement can reduce the risk of delay in raw material and spare parts. However, the short-term responses of COVID-19 disruptions were limited due to the characteristic of the automotive industry in terms of projects and model life cycle. As a result, upstream supply chain tiers are obligated to their contracts, and all adjustments to the supplier base must be authorized and confirmed by the OEMs. Therefore, it is challenging to quickly change the supplier selection and supply chain design in the short term. The COVID-19 disruption is likely to have a long-term impact on supplier selection and supply chain design. Furthermore, the aspect of increasing safety stocks was recognized as the best practice of the preparation, first response, and preparation of recovery. As was mentioned earlier, the automotive industry has lean supply chain practices in normal scenarios. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, it can be adjusted to be in a safe zone to not have any demand and supply issues. It is consistent with the literature [46,47,48], which describes lean practices as sensitive to disruptions and safety stocks as a valuable strategy to dealing with uncertainty [49]. Moreover, an implementation of an improved simulation, forecasting, and monitoring system is beneficial for company’s operations to simulate the shutdown and disruptions scenarios. Forecasting has been seen as valuable for making strategic decisions. The impact of the COVID-19 disruptions exceeded the ability to foresee or plan for disruptions based on forecasts. This concern is also related to communication and information sharing with stakeholders. It is essential and urgent to implement the best practices, such as continued improvement, to increase communication among the stakeholders. This practice should be implemented from the preparation stage for long-term impact.

• Implementing Industry 4.0 enabling technologies: According to the literature review, the new enabling technologies and big data analytics enhance collecting and monitoring the data. Recently, companies have been focusing on implementation of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) enabling technologies (e.g., Internet of Things (IoT), Big data, Cloud computing, Cyber-physical systems (CPS), Simulations, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence (AI), etc.) due to unexpected disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic [50,51,52,53,54,55]. The governmental restrictions and safety regulations caused halted productions, fluctuations in demand and supply, and problems with logistics. These concerns are possible to minimize by implementing Industry 4.0 enabling technologies. IoT may enable us to increase transparency and access to the information from the resources and thus improve productivity, production flexibility and waste minimization [56]. Big data approaches address the difficulty generated by a lack of robust data in relation to waste streams [57]. Therefore, it may enable us to improve customer profiling such as behaviors and trends, better understanding of the customer’s needs, and improved communication. Digital platforms and cloud manufacturing enable data to be simply accessed when it is needed; hence, it created a shared network of resources and capabilities. It enables us to build a long-term relationship and increases competitiveness by creating sustainable significance among the supply chain networks. The production and supply chain operations have been affected the most from the COVID-19 disruptions; hence, 3D virtual simulations may enable us to optimize the production planning and resource material flow and prepare the uncertainty in the market. Moreover, virtual development (VD) tools such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) may enable us to decrease costs, machine downtime and waste by using availability of real-time information. After the remote working option has been applied by many companies, new concerns were raised related to data protection. The current pandemic situation brought a new challenge to demonstrate the importance of the cyber-physical security systems (CPS) [58]. The organization must restructure the communication arrangements and security of organizational information by considering remote working condition. However, challenges of the implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies for sustainability are still ongoing as the research field is still evolving. These several challenges of sustainability benefits should be involved more in the customer’s strategy to have long-term sustainability impacts [59,60]. The response to question seven on the survey enabled the authors to analyze the status of implementing Industry 4.0 technologies in the organization. The findings from the survey and the interview were considered to implement new technologies for the opportunities and related sustainability benefits.

  Table 6. Opportunities of I4.0 and benefits of sustainability.

  Industry 4.0 Enabling Technologies	Opportunities of Industry 4.0					Benefits of Sustainability 4.0
  	Production Flexibility	Process Efficiency	Prototyping Speed	Machine Set Up	Stakeholder Relations	Resource Efficiency	Working Conditions	Extended Lifetimes	Production Waste	CE best Practices
  Digital platforms		x	x		x	x			x	x
  Additive manufacturing		x, o	x, o	x	x	x, o			x, o	x, o
  Internet of Things (IoT)	x, o	o		x, o	x	x, o	x	x	x, o	x, o
  Big data analytics	x	x		x	x, o	x	x	x	x, o	x
  Cyber physical security	x, o	x, o		x	x	x	x, o	x	x	x
  Artificial Intelligence (AI)		x, o		x		x	x	x	x	x
  Machine Learning	x	x, o		x			x, o	x	x	x
  Virtual development (VD)	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
  Blockchain		x			x	x			x	x
  Cloud computing
  Simulation models		x	x, o	x		x				x
  Autonomous robots	x, o	x, o	x, o	x, o		x, o	x	x, o	x, o	x
  Smart maintenance						x, o		x	x	x

  The ‘o’ represents the empirical data from the survey and the interview, and the ‘x’ indicates the recommended practice to be implemented in the company’s operations.

  illustrates the opportunities of Industry 4.0 and potential benefits of sustainability 4.0 for each enabling technology. The ‘o’ represents the empirical data from the survey and the interview, and the ‘x’ indicates the recommended practice to be implemented in the company’s operations.

Furthermore, the existence of reliable and updated ICT systems is vital to ensure operations continuity, especially when remote working is acceptable in the new normal. The reliable ICT system can enable the case study company to keep its operations during the pandemic or future disruptions when people are allowed to work from home. Therefore, the company should improve the ICT systems to be more reliable and secure operations while sharing more information and providing training to the employees. Overall, the sustainability benefits which result from the implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies should increase the efficiency of production at organization’s facility. As an outcome, resource efficiency may increase, machine set-up times and costs may decrease, zero-defect production may be enabled, working conditions may improve, and product development lead time may shorten. Implementing these various new technologies would enable the case study company to transform its production and supply chain operations to be more sustainable.

• Have a business continuity plan in place for possible disruptions in the future: In general, most of the companies acknowledge the significance and the advantage of having a back-up plan in place, but it showed that not all of them have a suitable or sustainable back-up plan or business continuity plan for possible disruptions. The organization should establish a strong business continuity plan, which will allow the company to react quickly and as an organized structure to any possible disruptions in the future. When a disruption occurs, the organization should examine if it is suitable and if adjustments are needed on the business continuity plan (BCP) according to the needs to strengthen the plan.
• Establish a good partnership and collaboration in the entire supply chain: It is critical to maintain a good collaboration environment between a company and its suppliers and customers in the entire supply chain, especially during times of crisis such as the COVID-19. Such a partnership environment might involve not just visibility and transparency between stakeholders and a company, but also supporting customers and suppliers when there is a need. Investment effort, time, and even money in a good partnership can be valuable to the company in the long run. It allows the company to avoid losing actors that might be difficult to replace within the supply chain in the future possible disruptions. According to the interviews and literature, effective communication between the stakeholders helps to mitigate the impact of the disruptions.
• Assess how suppliers and customers operated and how predictable they were during the crisis: During the sense phase, it was recommended to analyze and monitor suppliers and customers during the COVID-19 crisis to detect the problems of taking proper action at an early stage. After the COVID-19 pandemic or when the case study company has recovered fully from the disruptions, it would be important to analyze its suppliers and customers to identify which ones got through the pandemic without key issues and which ones had key issues which affected the company’s operations. It would be valuable to check how reliable the suppliers and/or customers were during the pandemic, if they were prepared or made any adjustments to their operations for future disruptions. According to this evaluation, strategic actions can be taken whether to keep working with certain suppliers/customers or look for more reliable ones. The best practice recommendations focused on the disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic on operational activities at its facility in three phases (e.g., sense, adapt and transform). The best practices represent a comprehensive overview of countermeasure actions that can be implemented in its operations to minimize the effects of any possible disruptions in future. The practices are focused on mitigating and managing the disruptions by looking at various business units of the organization at once.

5.6. Research Limitation

The main limitation is the fact that the study was conducted in an uncertain environment in the Turkish automotive manufacturing company. The case study was restricted to one company where collected data were obtained from the company’s employees only. The questions that were used concentrated on the current stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study findings were analyzed and interpreted from the regional perspective. The data analysis and results chosen were company-relevant and might not be possible to be generalized to other organizations in the other industries. Hence, these results could not be applicable to automotive companies in the other countries due to the spread of the virus affecting all nations differently. Therefore, the empirical results might be different than in a situation without an ongoing crisis. All the variables were analyzed based on the current picture which might be changed very frequently by time, and the possible disruptions might have some other effects on organizational activities of case study company. In addition, the sample used was considered as a representative sampling due to large population (5000 employees). According to the response rate (174 persons), it still might have some effect on the achieved results. The survey limitations were mentioned on the literature review [61] that is also applied in this study.

Some additional limitations or disadvantages of the paper that the researchers have faced concern surveys, and the construction can be presented as follows:

• Dishonest answers provided by respondents due to likely social bias, trying to protect privacy or some other reasons such as social desirability.
• Differences in understanding and interpretation. The context of questions may be misunderstood by respondents in surveys, which may result in false results.
• Unanswered questions in the surveys due to the overwhelming number of questions causing to response fatigue.

Although there is quite a list of limitations of surveys, the survey questionnaires are an inexpensive, practical, quick way to obtain results, and they are less time consuming, allowing us to gather data from a large audience with no time constraints.

The reliability of the paper can be enhanced by performing the same survey research in another automotive company to facilitate the following analysis of the data.

The pandemic led to a complete change in the work environment and work culture of many organizations. Analyses of the structural issues facing many manufacturing companies to be sustainable enforced those companies to solve those problems through the development of evaluation frameworks as well as allow to provide ideas which enable manufacturing companies to shift operations towards sustainability in the digital era.

5.7. Further Research

Future study might focus on additional geographical areas. Another idea might be to develop risk assessment and mitigation of the entire supply chain of case companies during the COVID-19 pandemic. This would help in understanding and answering the question, “What are the key factors of risk mitigation strategies in the industry, and how did the companies’ performance in the development of strategies during the crisis are affected?”

Therefore, industry-specific risk analysis in terms of economic, environmental, social and technical factors should be carried out where these factors could be varied from operation to operation. Future research might consider a qualitative and quantitative methodology for risk assessment focused on fuzzy weighting. Moreover, more manufacturing sectors should be involved in future analysis. If they are applied together with a selected assessment method, then they can provide comparable results suggesting possible practical implications for businesses and enhancing the current body of knowledge.

6. Conclusions

The research paper studied the impact of COVID-19 on operational activities of the automotive manufacturing company in Turkey. The paper mainly focused on evaluating the disruptions and limitations during the pandemic as well as possible risks that can occur in the future. In this context, the paper tested the formulated hypotheses about supply chain, logistics and production systems disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The research paper recommended several ways of improving the resilience of the production and supply chain operations in the considered company, which was also explored in [62]. Through the research, some valuable insights were provided on the impact of COVID-19 in the automotive company, such as the following:

• The pandemic effect resulted in significant disruptions over the analyzed company through various factors explained by shortage of raw materials and spare parts, availability of transportation, availability of workforce, demand fluctuations, sick leaves, new health and safety regulations.
• The crisis caused us to re-assess the needs of the company which reacted quickly to COVID-19 measures (over 80% respondents declared).
• The necessity to re-design resilience supply chain management by providing recovery plans (forecasting, supplier selection, simulation, monitoring) which consider different measures in different stages.
• Analyses of data gathered show that COVID-19 acted as an accelerator of digitalization [63]. It also uncovers opportunities of I4.0 and benefits of sustainability transition, when embodied within the companies’ need to be coupled with best practices.

The study provided the understanding of the organization’s sustainability transition efforts and COVID-19 challenges which need to be overcome in the production and supply chain operations. The significant challenges identified in the paper were classified into three main categories:

• Internal challenges: Organizational procedures, strategies, cultural mindset, employee’s motivation, skills and well-being, financial structures, etc.
• External challenges: New restrictions and regulations, global policies, collaboration with stakeholders, etc.
• Technological challenges: Data/information sharing, digital maturity level, stakeholder involvement, internal and external collaboration, etc.

Integration of I4.0 technologies with operations seems to be easy to implement within the internal environment but become harder to integrate into external challenges (such as legacy environments).

Based upon analyses of data collection gathered via the survey, the framework was developed based on a sustainable approach to reduce the impact of COVID-19 on operations, in which the company should ‘sense’ the different challenges, ‘adopt’ best practices to overcome challenges and ‘transform’ its operational activities/or processes to develop long-term sustainability values. The results of this paper also revealed that the automotive manufacturing company perceives opportunities and even pressure to shift toward digitalization of the current business model as it was presented for demand response services [64]. Therefore, analyses, exploitation, and implementation will remain challenging in the future research.

Lessons learned from the COVID-19 showed that the adaptation of best practices is the only way to go through with a negligible impact on business activities. The automotive companies can take advantages to gain the most out of the opportunities available for the time being. Considering an individual company which does not represent the whole automotive sector can provide better interpretation of results than big players, often being the entire automotive sector for a given country if separate best practices are deeply analyzed and formulate critical conclusions for providing risk resilience

This research contributes to the existing literature by providing empirical insights based on analysis in the context of digital Sustainability4.0 as an emerging research stream. It can be done through a combination of different concepts such as digitalization, supply chain 4.0, disruptions resilience, sustainability. This concept leads to develop the theoretical foundations for examining this connection of components to work in a digital sustainable environment. Moreover, the pandemic also contributes to industrial practices by positioning/framing the specific operational risk in supply chain in companies’ activities to be controlled and monitored on a regular basis. The impact of the virus on industry revealed a new importance or understanding of new digital business model innovation through digital transformation that should be adopted from managerial to employee level in the time after COVID [59,65,66]. From the other side, the study provides new challenges to reshape existing automotive supply chains becoming more sustainability in their business operations. Additionally, these contributions always must be provided to plan future operational changes against the background of operations of manufacturing companies to their supply chains. Automakers and suppliers need to rethink the supply chain risk model, from sourcing of raw materials to production of finished products, in order to protect their positions in the market, supply chain disruptions, and work forces.