Creating more resilient supply chains through nature-inspired design
Diverse supply chains that mimic ecological systems can more readily
adapt to unforeseeable disruptions

Date:
July 8, 2021
Source:
Northern Arizona University
Summary:
A new article lays out the way natural ecosystems parallel
U.S. supply chains and how American cities can use these tools to
strengthen their supply chains.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
A new paper in Nature lays out the way natural ecosystems parallel
U.S. supply chains and how American cities can use these tools to
strengthen their supply chains.


==========================================================================
The paper, "Supply chain diversity buffers cities against food shocks,"
is co- authored by Benjamin Ruddell, director of the FEWSION Project
and the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems at Northern
Arizona University, and Richard Rushforth, an assistant research professor
in SICCS, in collaboration with FEWSION project researchers at Penn
State. FEWSION is an NSF-funded collaboration that uses comprehensive
data mapping to monitor domestic supply chains for food, water and energy
down to the county level.

This research looks at the importance of diversity within the supply
chain, which helps to reduce damaging disruptions from supply chain
shocks. Supply chains work a lot like food webs in natural ecosystems, in
which biodiversity allows for adaptation during disruptions. The analogy
turned out to be incredibly insightful, particularly in looking at "black
swan" events, which are unpredictable and hard to protect against --
and for which adaptation, not prevention, is the main defense.

"This is why ecological theory is so important -- if we have diverse
supply chains that mimic ecological systems, they can more readily adapt
to unforeseeable shocks," Ruddell said. "We can use this nature-inspired
design to create more resilient supply chains." The study examined
a history of food flow data for U.S. cities, questioning whether the
diversity of a city's food supply chain explains the resilience of the
city's food supply to shocks. They found that the diversity of a city's
supply chain explains more than 90 percent of the intensity, duration
and frequency of historically observed food supply shocks in US cities.

This model worked regardless of the cause of the shock, which Ruddell
said is both profound and practical.

"We now have a simple and effective mathematical basis
for policies to boost a city's supply chain resilience,"
he said. "Coming years will reveal how broadly this finding
holds for other kinds of supply chains. Does it hold for
households? Nations? Electricity? Telecommunications?" This practical
solution can help leads communities to develop resilient supply
chains and better supply chain policy. It is particularly important in
today's economy, as the United States has seen several serious threats
to critical supply chains nationwide in the last 18 months, including
the global COVID-19 supply chain crunch, the Colonial Pipeline and JBS
meat processing ransomware attacks, the Suez Canal blockage, the hack of
water supplies in Florida and the ERCOT power and water outage. It also
is significant as the country heads into hurricane season, as several
major ports often are in the direct line of damaging storms.

Additionally, international events have led weakened supply chains in the course of several decades, including the globalization of supply chains, causing an increased reliance on manufacturers in Asia; just-in-time manufacturing and distribution, which leads to reduced inventories;
and global price competition, which has concentrated production to one
or two huge producers. The Biden Administration has recognized supply
chain resilience as a major priority and is setting national goals,
which Ruddell said is a step in the right direction, but communities can proactively strengthen their own supply chains as well to help prepare
for disaster.

"This finding is also promising for the intellectual synthesis of data
science, network theory and ecologically inspired (or nature-based)
resilience thinking and argues for further investment in the basic
research that led to this practical breakthrough," Ruddell said. "This
method can underpin a new class of federal regulations for critical
supply chain security and can be used to make our economy more secure
and resilient. We're excited to see where these ideas take us in coming
years. Resilience, based on solid science, is excellent policy for an unpredictable 21st century." Interested readers should visit the FEWSION Project website and explore the FEW-View tool, which maps the diversity
and resilience of supply chains for U.S. cities.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Northern_Arizona_University. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Michael Gomez, Alfonso Mejia, Benjamin L. Ruddell, Richard
R. Rushforth.

Supply chain diversity buffers cities against food shocks. Nature,
2021; 595 (7866): 250 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03621-0 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210708170351.htm

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