Within the TKI Dinalog project Next Gen Supply Chain Resilience, Windesheim, the University of Groningen and consultancy firm Involvation are working on ways to make companies more resilient. The Resilience Scan helps with this. "Companies know that resilience is important," says Ronald de Boer of Windesheim, "but they often don't know how to measure or improve it."
When the world went into lockdown in 2020, it suddenly became clear how vulnerable our supply chains are. Supermarket shelves were emptied, factories struggled to maintain production levels, and lorries came to a standstill. "I used to have to explain what supply chain management was at birthday parties," says Ronald de Boer of Windesheim University of Applied Sciences. "During the coronavirus pandemic, everyone suddenly knew what it means when the chain comes to a standstill."
Little Insight into Weak Spots in the Chain
That experience was the seed for a new research project: Next Gen Supply Chain Resilience. Together with knowledge partners the University of Groningen and consultancy firm Involvation, Windesheim developed an approach to help companies increase their resilience. Not abstract theory, but a practical tool that provides insight into where a chain is vulnerable and where it can be strengthened. "Companies know that resilience is important, but they don't know how to measure or improve it," says De Boer. "During the coronavirus pandemic, we saw how uncertain they were. Everyone was talking about buffers and stocks, but no one knew if they were doing the right thing." The Resilience Scan assesses how an organisation scores on five characteristics that are important for a resilient chain: cooperation, flexibility, speed of response, visibility of the chain and strategic buffers. According to De Boer, digital resilience is also part of this. "When we think of disruptions, we often think of things like the coronavirus or a blockage in the Suez Canal, but digital disruptions can also bring everything to a standstill," he says. "Many companies are not prepared for this at all. If your IT systems are down, the entire chain can come to a standstill."
From Producer to Academia
The university provided the theoretical basis, Windesheim translated it into a workable model, and Involvation applied the scan to companies. "One party wants a tool that works tomorrow, the other wants it to be theoretically sound," says De Boer. "That can sometimes cause friction, but this broad collaboration improves the end result."
Resilience Scan in Practice
At Involvation, a consultancy firm that works with manufacturing companies on a daily basis, they saw how the research directly related to practice. "For years, companies have focused on efficiency and tended to push the boundaries," says Jeroen Scheepers. "That's great when everything is going well, but as soon as something goes wrong, the chain comes to a standstill. Resilience is also about responding better to changes in supply and demand. If you do that more intelligently than your competitors, you will gain market share. Because if you can't deliver, you may lose customers."
The Resilience Scan helps companies face up to their vulnerabilities. Management teams discuss the results in working sessions, often with surprising insights. Some organisations turned out to be well prepared for problems with suppliers, but hardly at all for what could go wrong with customers. Others thought they were agile, until it turned out that every decision had to go through three layers of management.
Far Up in the Chain: from Grain to Flour
Flour and food coating manufacturer Royal Koopmans (not to be confused with the consumer brand that makes pancake mix, among other things) was one of the companies that attended a working session. Supply Chain Manager Mitchell van den Adel had already become familiar with the academic side of the subject during his PhD research in Groningen. When he moved into industry, the theme resurfaced in everyday practice. "We are quite high up in the chain," he explains. "We purchase the grain, grind it into flour, process it into breadcrumbs for some of our products, and supply it to producers of bread, snacks, and bakery products. We have little direct influence on consumer behaviour, but it does have a significant impact on us."
If a party further down the chain, such as Dr. Oetker or Albert Heijn, launches a marketing campaign without notifying us, demand suddenly peaks. "Then we suddenly get huge peaks in production, and weeks later it drops just as quickly." This is also known as the bullwhip effect. Koopmans produces around 800 types of flour and breadcrumbs, often tailored to the wishes of a single customer. That is a strength, but it also makes the company vulnerable. "One customer wants less salt, another wants paprika or parsley added," says Van den Adel. "That requires precision in production and planning. You have to constantly balance efficiency and flexibility."
Grain Prices through the Roof
In recent years, two major shocks have hit the industry. First, the coronavirus pandemic shut down the hospitality industry and caused demand for breadcrumbs to disappear overnight. Then came the war in Ukraine, which sent grain prices skyrocketing. "From one day to the next, a boatload of grain cost almost twice as much," says Van den Adel. "Suddenly, you have to look at your working capital in a completely different way." Yet it was precisely during this period that the value of forward thinking became apparent.
Shortly before the war, Koopmans had launched a new product: Nedertarwe, a sustainably grown grain variety from Dutch soil. “This enabled us to continue production when the global market came to a standstill. The volume was still small, but it provided stability. And it shows that local chains can be a form of resilience.”
Do Not Wait for the Next Crisis
When Koopmans completed the Resilience Scan with the entire management team, new risks came to light. Not only on the supplier side, but also on the customer side. "We saw how dependent we are on a few large customers," says Van den Adel. "If one of them leaves, it has an immediate major impact. We are now using that insight for our business continuity plan." At Involvation, they saw the same awareness among other participants. "Everyone thinks resilience is important, but it only becomes urgent when something goes wrong," says Scheepers. "The scan helps to have that conversation earlier. You don't have to wait for the next crisis."
More than 300 companies have now completed the scan. The data provides a wealth of knowledge about how organisations deal with risks. Some sectors, such as the pharmaceutical industry, score low on flexibility but high on cooperation and control. Others, such as the food industry, excel in agility but struggle with limited buffers. "This research was only possible thanks to TKI funding," says Bas van Bree of TKI Dinalog. "This enabled us to bring together parties that would not otherwise collaborate. A joint approach is essential, especially when it comes to complex challenges such as supply chain resilience."
For the researchers, the project is far from complete. They are now working on follow-up questions: how do resilience and sustainability relate to each other? And what combinations of characteristics make a chain strong in the long term? "The next step is to investigate how organisations can incorporate resilience into their strategic choices," says De Boer. "And we also want to look at the financial side: how do companies weigh up costs, risks and working capital? There is still a lot of uncertainty about this."
Predicting Is Impossible, but Preparing is Possible
“A sustainable chain is often also a resilient chain,” says De Boer. “But you have to be able to demonstrate that.” The insights gained from the project are now being fed back into education and business. Students use the scan in practical assignments at companies, consultancies apply the method in their own processes, and the consortium is working on new models for the coming years. No longer focused solely on efficiency, but on adaptability. Or as Mitchell van den Adel puts it: "You can't predict everything, but you can prepare for it. You have to make sure you're not dependent on a single scenario. Resilience does not mean that you have everything under control, but that you can deal with whatever comes your way."
