Adaptive Logistics for Flexible, Resilient Supply Chains.

This can be a more sustainable alternative than permanently adapting environments to fit logistics technologies. For example, over centuries, people have engineered rivers to change the environment to make logistics more efficient. This has included flood plains being engineered to drain into rivers and straightening rivers to speed up water-borne transportation.

 However, such technological interventions can leave waterways more vulnerable to drying out and overflowing amidst extreme weather. Either of which can cause severe disruption to global supply chains. This is evident when the drying out of rivers to impassibly shallow depths restricts the passage of water-bourne vessels and when overflowing rivers destroy nearby road infrastructure.

Accordingly, adaptable logistics systems must be designed and operated as biosocial-technical systems that prioritise supply chain flexibility and resilience. Professor Dr Ahmed Agyapong of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana is interested in how previous implementations of logistics technologies in Africa have sometimes led to the fragmentation of supply networks across the continent and how increased consideration of adaptive fitness could improve African logistics.

Options for adaptive logistics systems can be found at our e-learning webpage: https://community.digilogic.africa/course/adaptive-logistics-for-flexible-resilient-supply-chains/