Periodic Reporting for period 2 - REMESH (Research Network on Emergency Resources Supply Chain)
Reporting period: 2023-07-01 to 2025-02-28
This project aims to bring together an international team of researchers with a wide variety of skills in supply chain and logistics research of emergency resources management systems, and to tackle challenges faced by industry which require specialist knowledge and innovation. The proposed research will be developing an Emergency Resources Supply Chain (ERSC) framework with appropriate support models for application to the risk management, cold chain management, supply chain management, Big Data technology, and packaging, distribution and transport sectors.
The proposed ERSC framework plays a crucial role in promoting the effective application of disaster management, and differs from conventional supply chains in some explicit ways. ERSC operations have to analyse all demands in a very short period of time, using limited resources. The application of different technologies is strongly dependent on the kind of natural disaster, climate conditions, infrastructure, etc. There is currently no comprehensive emergency management methodology in existence that allows for rapid decision-making processes, sufficient to meet the needs of an emergency supply chain and to ensure product integrity in the event of different natural disasters. Therefore, an effective and efficient ERSC must be designed, constructed and maintained in order to support continuous and smooth material and information flows. This must include a diverse set of plans, resources, authorities, agencies, and their associated human resources.
The research contributes to European economic competitiveness by producing a group of highly creative researchers, with the expertise and skills that will allow them to become productive and insightful engineers and scientists. It also establishes collaborative mechanisms for long-term partnerships between European and Asian researchers and institutes, with expertise in supply chain and logistics research of emergency resources management. Similarly, this shall advance disaster management and decision making, in order to address the issues of technology changes and emerging uncertainties in the 21st century.
The project has 9 partners (6 EU members and 3 TC members) who have agreed for a program of extensive exchange of both Experienced Researchers (ERs) and Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) during four years from May 2019, in order to fully explore and exploit the complementary strengths and synergies within the consortium. The interdisciplinary nature of the proposed exchange programme offers a link for research and training of the involved ERs and ESRs, in a collaborative academic environment. This serves to support and reinforce the collaborations amongst the participants and helps establish a long-term research collaboration.
During the project period, we achieved a strong publication record with 47 papers published in peer-reviewed journals and 43 papers presented at national and international conferences, all focused on emergency supply chain management. This reflects the project’s significant contribution to advancing knowledge and practice in the field. In the past 12 months alone, we maintained this momentum with 16 journal publications and 10 conference presentations. Each of these outputs has acknowledged the support of the REMESH grant, ensuring visibility and recognition of the funding body. The breadth and consistency of these publications demonstrate the project’s sustained research productivity and impact. Full details of all publications are provided in technical report.
The proposed ERSC framework plays a crucial role in promoting the effective application of disaster management, and differs from conventional supply chains in some explicit ways. ERSC operations have to analyse all demands in a very short period of time, using limited resources. The application of different technologies is strongly dependent on the kind of natural disaster, climate conditions, infrastructure, etc. There is currently no comprehensive emergency management methodology in existence that allows for rapid decision-making processes, sufficient to meet the needs of an emergency supply chain and to ensure product integrity in the event of different natural disasters. Therefore, an effective and efficient ERSC must be designed, constructed and maintained in order to support continuous and smooth material and information flows. This must include a diverse set of plans, resources, authorities, agencies, and their associated human resources.
The research contributes to European economic competitiveness by producing a group of highly creative researchers, with the expertise and skills that will allow them to become productive and insightful engineers and scientists. It also establishes collaborative mechanisms for long-term partnerships between European and Asian researchers and institutes, with expertise in supply chain and logistics research of emergency resources management. Similarly, this shall advance disaster management and decision making, in order to address the issues of technology changes and emerging uncertainties in the 21st century.
The project has 9 partners (6 EU members and 3 TC members) who have agreed for a program of extensive exchange of both Experienced Researchers (ERs) and Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) during four years from May 2019, in order to fully explore and exploit the complementary strengths and synergies within the consortium. The interdisciplinary nature of the proposed exchange programme offers a link for research and training of the involved ERs and ESRs, in a collaborative academic environment. This serves to support and reinforce the collaborations amongst the participants and helps establish a long-term research collaboration.
During the project period, we achieved a strong publication record with 47 papers published in peer-reviewed journals and 43 papers presented at national and international conferences, all focused on emergency supply chain management. This reflects the project’s significant contribution to advancing knowledge and practice in the field. In the past 12 months alone, we maintained this momentum with 16 journal publications and 10 conference presentations. Each of these outputs has acknowledged the support of the REMESH grant, ensuring visibility and recognition of the funding body. The breadth and consistency of these publications demonstrate the project’s sustained research productivity and impact. Full details of all publications are provided in technical report.
The scientific impact of the proposed research has been facilitated through high-quality papers in the most prestigious and relevant journals and also conference presentations. Within the consortium, the results generated by the project have been disseminated via exchange visits, workshops, conferences, the project website and industrial visits. One workshop has been organised at LJMU in July 2019 and one more will be organised at WUT, in May 2020, focusing on the Insight and foresight to REMESH, Systems Engineering and ERSC, respectively. Representatives from local industries and societies have been invited to attend the workshops and have received a briefing on progress and key results achieved. The dissemination strategy also aims to communicate effectively with parties outside the project, such as other European project consortia and potential users of ERSC systems. The produced results have been published and continue to be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and international conference proceedings. The project will create a number of small sub-projects (such as risk analysis modelling and simulation study of an emergency supply chain) for MSc and undergraduate students at the individual partner institutions such as LJMU, UBO, UNIMAN and WUT. In addition, the research outcomes of this project have been incorporated into some taught modules of the MSc courses in Healthcare supply chain management run by the individual partners including LJMU, UGR, and WUT.
The research outcomes from the project have been exploited through the following paths:
• Publications such as journal papers that in open access (such as ZENODO, institutional repositories).
• Papers and presentations in conferences (e.g. Annual European Safety and Reliability Conference).
• Two workshops organised as described previously.
• Invited presentations at international conferences or workshops such as ICTIS 2019, ICDEM 2020, NEMA2020.
• Research visits of local industries.
Research outcomes from the project continue to be exploited through publications, workshops and collaboration with industrial partners. The project consortium will continue to promote general emergency resources management concepts and also safety culture through a variety of ways such as project leaflets, the project website, project newsletters and public lectures.
The research outcomes from the project have been exploited through the following paths:
• Publications such as journal papers that in open access (such as ZENODO, institutional repositories).
• Papers and presentations in conferences (e.g. Annual European Safety and Reliability Conference).
• Two workshops organised as described previously.
• Invited presentations at international conferences or workshops such as ICTIS 2019, ICDEM 2020, NEMA2020.
• Research visits of local industries.
Research outcomes from the project continue to be exploited through publications, workshops and collaboration with industrial partners. The project consortium will continue to promote general emergency resources management concepts and also safety culture through a variety of ways such as project leaflets, the project website, project newsletters and public lectures.
This project starts to generate some extra impact through collaboration among the partners. LJMU and MU have developed a dual PhD programme in Engineering. It is anticipated that other European partners will also look at similar collaborative opportunities with the TC partners. The produced ERSC framework will be recommended to the UK’s Health & Safety Executive (HSE) in their guidelines.