About the project

The Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc and crashes worldwide. The Danish economy is a small open economy that is dependent on international cooperation and on the fact that goods can flow freely and unproblematically globally. This applies both on the sales side and on the supply side.

This also means that most of the Danish SMEs’ supply chains are global and characterized by a high degree of complexity, long distances and many intermediaries. Danish supply chains are therefore particularly vulnerable to unforeseen events and breakdowns of various kinds.

A recent study of Danish industry shows a further significant gap between the perceived relevance of supply chain risk management and current implementation (Read more here).

Purpose

The purpose of the project is to identify and address the supply chain vulnerabilities of Danish production SMEs in order to build up a significantly larger supply chain resilience (SCR) broadly within this business segment.

The goal is to strengthen and develop the resilience of SMEs to be able to handle current and future pandemics such as COVID-19, but also other future disturbances. Such disturbances are e.g. pandemics such as swine flu and SARS, it can be natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, hurricanes and fires e.g. in Australia and California; there may be price fluctuations; cyber attacks like when Maersk was hit and lost track of their containers; it can be man-made disasters; trade disputes e.g. between the United States and China and regional instability.

The participating SMEs are strengthened through the supply of knowledge, competencies and tools within resilience in – and risk management of supply chains. In addition, in a broader sense, there will be dissemination and offers of knowledge transfer and training from the project to the small and medium-sized Danish production companies in Denmark.