When applying this capacity planning approach, the
following shortcomings become apparent: First, the
visibility of the semiconductor experts on their product’s
end user market is very limited. Accordingly,
semiconductor suppliers hardly know in which car
models their products will finally be installed. The effect
of general market trends on one’s own production is
hard to assess and the forecasts suffer from a lack of
reliability. Second, there is a lack of structure in the
approaches to align or communicate capacity and
investment decisions between the automotive supplier
and the semiconductor supplier. Third, the automotive
suppliers usually do not deliver stable planning data for
3-4 months. Therefore, even the released production
orders (order backlog) are still subject to changes. And
last but not least, the demand from the automotive end
user undergoes a number of planning cycles before
being transmitted to the semiconductor industry. As a
result, the semiconductor suppliers are affected by large
demand fluctuations, even if the original demand of the
automotive OEM is rather stable