During the first 18 months of the 3-year project, the ResC4EU Project successfully achieved four major milestones:
1) SMEs’ Supply Chain Challenges and Needs:
The ResC4EU Consortium began with an assessment of the challenges, risks, and disruptions faced by SMEs. This was done through literature research and direct engagement between the ResC4EU Cluster partners and their member SMEs across all 14 targeted industrial sectors, to better understand their specific supply chain challenges and needs. For each of the 14 industrial sectors supply chain challenges – both current and potential future disruptions – along with advanced technologies to address these challenges, and potential suppliers of such technologies, were identified and specified under the leadership of the ResC4EU Clusters. The results are summaries in three public reports. Additionally, the first 50 techy-savvy SMEs with innovative advanced technology solutions have been identified and are ready to present their solutions to manufacturing SMEs.
2) Models for Multimodal logistics and Supply Chain Resilience:
A new framework to assess supply chain resilience was created to help each industrial sector spot potential disruptions and explore opportunities for using advanced technologies. This framework was developed by the project’s technology partners, and it works through three sub-models:
• Model 1: Supply Chain Resilience Assessment
This basic model helps SMEs assess how resilient their supply chains are. It gives businesses a score that they can use to compare their performance with others in the same industry or across different industries.
• Model 2: Logistics and Transportation Risk Alerts
This model keeps track of potential risks in supply chains that involve multiple forms of transportation (like trucks, ships, and trains). It alerts stakeholders about any disruptions that might affect the movement of goods.
• Model 3: Carbon Footprint Assessment (Global Warming Potential Assessment)
This model helps calculate the environmental impact of supply chain processes by looking at things like location, transportation methods, energy use, and how products are made. It helps businesses understand their carbon footprint and find ways to reduce it.
3) ResC4EU B2B platform Launch in Oct’24 – A B2B marketplace for SMEs:
One key of improving resilience of supply chains is diversification of suppliers. Therefore, the ResC4EU has launched the ResC4EU B2B platform and its first service for the SMEs – the B2B marketplace. Here can SMEs showcase and offer their products and services and find new business partners, including innovative solutions, products and services offered by tech-savvy SMEs. Over 100 companies have already registered on the platform.
4) Public awareness, Mobilisation of SMEs and Alliance building:
To engage SMEs and encourage their participating in the ResC4EU SME Support programme, ResC4EU has launched an extensive promotional campaign. A total of 94 communication activities were carried out through the ResC4EU Cluster partners (125 activities, including LinkedIn posts). These included: 50 public events, 10 media articles, 24 own newsletters, 1 radio interview, 9 policy engagement events, and 31 LinkedIn news promoting the ResC4EU project and its planned SME support. Additionally, initial alliances have been established with other cluster organisations to expand the outreach to SMEs. Collaborative communication efforts with other EU projects, such as GreenOffshoreTech, have also been successfully initiated.
