Protecting people, planet and profit; the development of reliable supply chains

The aim of Protect is to identify how national and international supply chains can be made secure. To achieve secure supply chains the integrity of the cargo, equipment and personnel has to be guaranteed at all time and within each part of the supply chain. This project builds upon the substantial knowledge available on supply chain design and management and knowledge available on development and implementation of security measures for single processes or locations.

After the terrorist attack of 9/11 and various others companies, governments and citizens realise that our world is vulnerable. This vulnerability is especially felt in international business as companies have evolved in complex and highly independent structures. To these companies the issues of reliability and resilience of their supply partners and processes (supply, production, distribution) has received a new dimension.

This research is connected to a large number of developments and international security initiatives in transport, like ISPS code, C-TPAT, CSI, etc. This research takes these developments as the starting point for the creation and development of new insights, tools and instruments that support integral secure supply chains round the world. It is essential to establish a link between security and business continuity and security and criminality. When security measures also provide an added value to short term profitability, companies have a greater incentive to invest in security measures. If short term benefits are not present, outside pressures driven by customs or other governmental regulations will push security measures but in a much slower pace. The transition aspects of this project are introduction and adoption of public and private security regulations; implementation of security certification; increase of security awareness in business and development of a security architecture.

The objective of this Transumo project is to determine the factors that determine the level of reliability and security of national and international supply chains and how companies and government can manipulate these factors to make of keep supply chains secure

Participants
TNO, BCI Global, Port of Rotterdam, Douane, EVO, NDL, TLN

Projectmanager
Erasmus University Rotterdam: Dr. A. Veenstra