The 25th anniversary of the European Supply Chain Forum was celebrated the 30th of September with an interactive event on Future-Proof Supply Chains. The overall atmosphere was one of energy and relief, as many attendees were eager to get back to networking (and learning!) in a face-to-face setting.
Speakers
The event itself featured three highly appraised speakers, namely prof. Ard-Pieter de Man, prof. Ton de Kok and prof. Hau Lee. Ard-Pieter de Man informed the participants on how to deal with the rise of platforms, highlighting the challenges and benefits that come with platform partnerships. The presence of prof. Ton de Kok and prof. Hau Lee was no coincidence, as they are the two founding fathers of the ESCF. Hau Lee talked about In and Out supply chains, which revolved around how to redesign your supply chain by means of digitization and the usage of new technologies in general. The final talk was held by Ton de Kok, where he went in-depth on how his view regarding the future of supply chains has developed the past couple of decades.
AI
Besides these talks, the AI Planner of the Future program got introduced to the partners by Frauke Behrendt and Laurens Bliek. The program features 10 PhD assignments and will feature over 50 MSc. and BSc. students. Some research subjects include Digital Twinning and the relationship between AI and Humans. Moreover, Frauke and Laurens talked about how partners could contribute to the projects.
Break-out sessions
The event also featured interactive break-out sessions where attendees could talk and discuss the current challenges they are facing within their supply chains and respective companies. Each session was accompanied by an illustrator, who expertly crafted all information that was floating around into illustrative posters. These posters where then used to present short summaries of each session to the larger audience.
ESCF Student Award
Finally, the event featured the ESCF student project awards, where 7 students were nominated for having done the best research. The final winner of the award was Twan Vranken with his thesis on “Improving a Production-Inventory Model in the Multi-Machine, Hybrid MTO-MTS Chemical Industry” which he performed at Sabic. Many congratulations to Twan and all other nominees!
