While seasonal mill consumption is often constant, supply chain risks like disruptions and seasonal irregularities in wood harvest and transport are significant challenges for wood supply management in most regions of Europe. Given the wide variety of market, infrastructure, and climate conditions between regions, there is a need for an integrated framework for modeling and analysis of efficiency, resilience and sustainability of supply chain responses to disruptions. At the same time, the increasing occurrences of natural disturbances such as windstorms require an increased buffer capacity. In this context, innovative multimodal transport systems with truck transport to rail and sea terminals can increase buffer capacity and enable reduction of fossil fuel emissions.
The objective of the project is to establish an integrated framework for testing multimodal innovations for greener and more resilient wood supply in Northern and Central Europe, delivered as a supply chain simulation model for participatory evaluation and implementation of new developed strategies. The research approach starts with a broad initial mapping to establish common frameworks for regional analyses of supply operations which then quantify parameters for the integrated supply chain simulation model. The project has three work packages. These include:
WP1. Supply chain mapping, focusing on mapping typical supply chain disruption patterns, system elements and management processes for multimodal transport.
WP2. Supply operations analysis, focusing on developing a common framework for analysis of organization-level irregularities in harvesting production and multimodal transport, as well as the driving factors behind these irregularities.
WP3. Supply chain modeling and participatory evaluation, focusing on developing a supply chain simulation model for testing multimodal innovations with a participatory evaluation of strategies to cope with supply chain disruptions.
In addition to a comprehensive cataloguing of regional challenges and multimodal system capacities and management processes, the key deliverable from the project is a new virtual environment enabling manager involvement in testing, analysis and evaluation of relatively complex multimodal systems.
Further information, publications and presentations
Category:
Transnationale Projekte
Sustainable Logistics and Supply Chains, ERA-NET TRANSPORT III Flagship Call 2015
Project coordination
Universität für Bodenkultur Wien - Institut für Produktionswirtschaft und Logistik
Dr. Peter Rauch
Tel.: +43-1-47654-4414
Fax: +43-1-47654-4417
E-Mail: peter.rauch@boku.ac.at