Every second Wednesday of the month, the Circular Industries Hub organises the Circular Industries Talks. On Wednesday September 14, Dr. Glenn Aguilar-Hernandez (Postdoc researcher at CML, Leiden University) joined us as a guest speaker. In his lecture, Glenn talked about the impact of COVID-19 on global supply chains. Here, we look back on the content of his talk.
COVID-19 and global supply chain resilience
In 2020, global supply chains were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The virtual standstill in China generated a supply chain risk for multiple countries. Despite supply chain disruptions, the Dutch electronics industry presented an increase of production, and the Dutch imports of semiconductor components from China increased in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. This suggests that the electronics industry changed production quickly in the middle of a global semiconductor shortage in the first quarter of 2021. From a resilience perspective, it is crucial to understand how supply chains would react to disruptive events. In this Circular Industries Talks session, we explored the dynamic of the semiconductor supply chains during the COVID-19 events in 2020 and 2021, and describe which resilience mechanisms (i.e., diversity of supply, stockpiling, and material substitution) can be used to improve supply chain resilience in a post-COVID era.
From a resilience perspective, it is crucial to understand how supply chains would react to disruptive events.
Take-home messages
From this Circular Industries Talks session, we learned that:
- Lesson 1: it is crucial to consider dynamics aspects as supply chain resilience changes through time
- Lesson 2: circularity has a major role in a post-COVID era
- Lesson 3: collaboration across supply chain actors (especially SMEs) is a key aspect to improving supply chain resilience
Glenn A. Aguilar-Hernandez
Glenn A. Aguilar-Hernandez is a postdoc researcher and lecturer at CML. Since 2011, he has contributed to multiple sustainability projects, including topics such as circular economy, climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies, and bioenergy. Currently, his research is focused on circular economy and sustainable resource management, with emphasis on critical raw materials and supply chain resilience.
Curious about Glenn Aguilar-Hernandez's talk?
The Circular Industries talks
The goal of the Circular Industries talks is to share knowledge across Leiden, Delft and Erasmus and to complement and deepen the knowledge already available within the Circular Industries Hub. The talks are organized on Wednesday morning from 10:00 to 11:00. The talks are online (Microsoft Teams). Next up in the CI Talks: Roosa Joensuu (28 September)