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Beschreibung
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As the frequency and magnitude of global disruptions increase, organisations and individuals need to consider a novel range of options to build resilience and to ensure viability. Over the past years, supply chains (SCs) resembled less a line of dominoes and evolved into an intertwined supply network (ISN) with dynamically changing structures, roles and behaviours, inspired by circular and sharing economies. In line with this trend, CERERE’s major goal is to increase the resilience and ensure the viability of the cereals ISN (C-ISN) and related food systems in MENA countries through the achievement of 4 specific objectives:
- Objective 1. To map and assess the resilience and viability of the Mediterranean cereal ISN to identify critical dependencies between actors and detect, analyse and predict vulnerabilities. CERERE aims at disclosing all the dependencies within the Mediterranean cereal ISN to have a clear understanding of the economic relationships, logistic flows and business interrelations. The goal is realistic and achievable thanks to the partners’ experience in similar projects and their expertise in the area of supply chain management and risk assessment. The achievement will be measured through the definition of: 1) a structural resilience and viability indexes; 2) a detailed mapping of the ‘status quo’ of the Mediterranean cereal ISN; 3) a list of vulnerabilities and a related mechanism to detect automatically potential vulnerabilities.
- Objective 2. To design and develop an intelligent nerve center to be used for resilient network design space exploration via experimentation and for the agile orchestration of the cereal ISN. Industry 4.0 technologies – such as Internet of Things, Digital Twins, Prescriptive Analytics, Simulation-based Optimization, Artificial Intelligence, among others – are key to help organizations prepare for future disruptions while minimizing their impact and keep their SC viable. This goal is realistic as similar tools are already being discussed or prototyped in different sectors (e.g. manufacturing) and achievable because the consortium has relevant expertise with the involved technologies acquired during several projects. The achievement will be measured through the development of the technological components of the intelligent nerve center that will be integrated through open source middleware FIWARE in a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform.
- Objective 3. To cultivate a Mediterranean resilience-minded culture and localized experiences for creating a fertile socio-cultural soil for future disruption-proof C-ISNs. CERERE aims to disseminate easily accessible end-user material and training products targeted at farmers, food manufacturers, consumers, researchers and policy makers to develop the digital readiness and knowledge maturity of individuals and organisations operating in the MENA countries and, by large, in the Mediterranean countries. The goal is realistic and achievable as the consortium has large experience with maturity assessments, creation of education content, knowledge transfer and active engagement with citizens. It will be measured through a series of initiatives that are carried out as part of pilots, campaigns and dissemination.
- Objective 4. To derive a list of good practices and evidence-based recommendations for organisations and policy-makers to build viable and resilient agri-food ISNs in the Mediterranean region. Formulation of policy recommendations based on scenario analysis are key to support MENA countries and to facilitate the interoperability of CERERE concepts and results into other projects, other contexts, or other supply chains, thus promoting CERERE-based innovation. The goal is realistic and achievable as the consortium has connections with local communities and policy makers in the MENA region and expertise with definition of policies and recommendations. It will be measured through the number of recommended policies, strategies, action plans or best practices for a variety of stakeholders located in different MENA countries.
While today’s control towers can significantly improve supply-chain performance, especially for the short term, they have limitations in their functional scope, ability to sense upcoming shocks, and capacity to compute globally optimal responses. Furthermore, while literature is rich on models related to resilient recovery strategies, the research on the viability perspective is at its infancy. CERERE aims at creating a Mediterranean-wide supply network intelligent nerve center that overcomes the boundaries of the research or companies, and actually becomes useful for citizens and creates an impact on the society. As discussed in Ambrogio et al. (2022)3 , disruptive events push SC actors to reallocate inventory sourcing mix across geographical regions to better diversify risk and achieve resiliency. A transition toward a “capability-based” and “technology-enabled” digital supply network (DSN) can provide the required visibility and agility to face future interruptions and unpredictable black swan events (Ivanov & Dolgui, 2020)4 . This calls for the need of tools that companies can use to effectively plan and mitigate risks in the event of disruptions like the COVID-19 (Di Nardo et al., 2020)5 . However, because no standard playbook has yet emerged for transitioning to a supply-chain intelligent nerve center, the agri-food sector is an excellent and promising use case with incredible potential impacts. While the majority of scientific literature has focused on supply chain risk management and resilience, very little has been done in the agri-food sector and in terms of synergic strategies and toolkits for SC actors to build, react and mitigate the impact of disruptions (especially for smallholders). The ambition of this research project is to fill this research gap through the design, development and testing of a toolkit for SC actors, maximize the acceptance and uptake of a resilience-oriented mindset for agri-food SC actors and ascertain the goodness, feasibility and sustainability of this solution from a business view.
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