COMPETENCE CENTER: CCSCCE | Competence Center for Supply Chain & Circular Economy

The competence center sees itself as a hub between research and teaching on the one hand, and business, politics and institutions on the other, with the aim of developing a comprehensive and holistic view of the physical and digital supply chain.

In the field of tension between globalization, digitization and automation, the interest lies in a holistic view of the vulnerability of the supply chain and its networks (basic, supply and public networks) as the sum of the primary and auxiliary processes (in particular storage and transport of goods, information and money) taking into account the embedding in transnational and international supply systems (energy, raw materials, food, medical consumer goods, information, etc.), which is caused by political, legal, economic, civil, technical, as well as natural / biological and environmental events, “man-made” and  “non man-made” that can lead to interruptions and bottlenecks in supply.

The development of risk-reducing strategies and resilience strategies requires innovations in qualitative and quantitative concepts, models, methods and tools in the area of ​​risk assessment as well as modeling and simulation in order to determine the degree of resilience required (stockpiling, in-house production, self-sufficiency of raw materials) on governmental and business level.

Technologies in supply chain are increasingly of strategic importance as the backbone of optimizing supply chains in order to ensure efficiency, security and profitability. To this end, technologies (e.g., DLT / blockchain) or applications for the supply chain processes should be identified, in particular those required for synchronization within and between the supply chains, from the raw material supplier to the end customer.

The consideration of the sustainability of the supply chain (ecological, economic and societal aspects, as a departure from the one criterion construction principle of minimum possible costs) and thus the circular economy and steady state economy is another important and integrated part of the field of activity.

The tasks of the competence center are:

• Positioning the competence center as a visible, accessible, reliable and credible source of information on the topic of supply chain.
• Method development for and analysis of threats and vulnerabilities as well as development of resilience strategies
• Identification of (new) technologies and evaluation for supply chain applications
• Development of concepts for the circular / steady state economy.
• Developing and disseminating best practice on a scientific basis by researching, publishing and organizing / participating in congresses, symposiums, seminars and the “Science Cloud”