Last GPC Meeting of 2021 - Global Production Management

19. November 2021

Post-pandemic production networks

On October 19 and 20, the last community meeting in 2021 of the Global Production Community (GPC) took place under the guiding theme “Post-Pandemic Production Networks”. The focus of the meeting was on risk and crisis management in global production networks as well as the identification of success factors whose implementation can contribute significantly to the successful management of crises. The latter was addressed by our center manager Andreas Gützlaff in an exciting keynote speech on the topic “Post-Pandemic Production Networks – Robust Growth Despite Turbulent Supply Chains” followed by a discussion among the GPC members. A key insight: the number of possible events is heterogeneous and difficult to predict, but known success factors – risk management, agility and resilience, and digitalization – provide an answer to all potential challenges. The meeting was rounded off by two exciting contributions from GPC member companies. Finally, the members of our community discussed success factors for coping with future crises.

The Key Insights of the Meeting:

Long-term and collaborative supplier relationships are 10 times less likely to fail than new suppliers in the event of supply difficulties, as was the case during the pandemic.
Avoid bullwhip effects: Through early communication in the event of foreseeable delivery problems or production stoppages.
Companies can produce closer to the market by bringing up to 1/3 of their production processes back to Germany with consistent automation and digitalization.

We would like to thank all participants who enriched the GPC meeting with their contributions and we are looking forward to our next meeting on February 22nd and 23rd in Aachen!

The Global Production Community (GPC)

The aim of the Global Production Community (GPC) is to promote structured knowledge exchange in a small circle of companies alongside the world of research on the topic of network design. Within the scope of the community, principles, methods, and tools for the design and management of production networks are jointly discussed, developed, and customized. The central purpose for the community partners is methodical support for the successful design of global production networks. The scientific foundation of the exchange is cemented through the expertise of the WZL at RWTH Aachen University.

Participants of the community are enabled to critically analyze their own activities regarding the design of their network and to continue the development of their own abilities. The visits to the community partners during the networking events allow insights into various types of successfully designed global production networks. In effect, a non-competitive and confidential competence network is and will be developed systematically, allowing for intensive knowledge exchange with companies in other industry sectors.

Global-Production-Community_EN-scaled Last GPC Meeting of 2021

GPMC

Are you interested in the Global Production Community? Reach out to us and work with us to develop solutions for the production management of tomorrow. For further information about our communities, feel free to consult our dedicated webpage: Our Communities.

Also, visit our LinkedIn page for information and news about the GPMC.

Related GPMC-Study

consortium benchmarking “Design of global production networks” (German) | Download

This brochure summarizes the results of the consortium benchmarking “Design of global production networks” of the Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL) of RWTH Aachen University in a practice-oriented guide. For this purpose, the results of the benchmarking study were supplemented by the experiences of the successful-practice company visits. Within the framework of the project, a total of more than 50 specialists and managers were interviewed. Currently, this study is only available in German.

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