Person wearing a mask between warehouse shelves

Supply Chain Resilience During COVID-19

“Resilience” is a term commonly used to assess how well supply chains have coped under the severe economic disruption caused by the pandemic.

Lockdowns and social distancing measures have impacted firms’ supply of materials, production capacity, and demand. 

This research focusses on the supply-side, and explores how firms have managed with severe disruptions to the supply of materials into their operations. A cross-country comparison of firms based in the UK, Germany, and Finland explores patterns and differences in supply chain practice, between firms, industries, and countries. 

The research aims to undercover the antecedents of supply resilience and perceptions of risk. In essence - what do corporate buyers pay attention to, and what don’t they pay attention to? What are the blind spots, and why?

Indications of ‘embedded’ risk reproduce a 'back-to-normal' position, without addressing more fundamental supply chain dependencies. The data will be used to map the relationships between sources of risk and network recovery strategies. The results are to be shared with business leaders and supply chain professionals to help support firms’ pay attention to various risks in their local, national, and global supply markets.

Details of this project's findings will be shared here as they become available.

Research team:

Dr Jo Meehan, University of Liverpool, UK
Dr Harri Lorentz, University of Turku, Finland
Dr Sini Laari, University of Turku, Finland
Prof Michael Henke, TU Dortmund University, Germany
Prof Michael Essig, Bundeswehr University, Germany

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