Supply Risk Research Articles

Effect of post-annealing on magnetic anisotropy in La–Co co-substituted M-type strontium ferrite

We investigated the effect of post-annealing on the magnetic anisotropy in La–Co co-substituted magnetoplubite-type strontium ferrite, a matrix phase of commercial high-performance ferrite magnets. Post-annealing was found to be effective in controlling the distribution of substituted Co2+. The Co2+ distribution obtained by lower-temperature annealing shows higher magnetic anisotropy, suggesting that uniaxial magnetic anisotropy is enhanced only when Co2+ occupies the most stable occupied site, i.e., the 4f1 site in the tetrahedral coordination. Furthermore, the slower the cooling rate, the higher the anisotropy. The temperature-dependent Co2+ distribution predicted from the reported density functional theory calculations was compared with the actual anisotropy after annealing, yielding +2.3 meV/ion as the Co2+ anisotropy constant at the tetrahedrally coordinated site and −1.2 meV/ion as that at the octahedrally coordinated sites. Careful selection of heat treatment conditions leads to efficient use of cobalt, an element with supply risks.

Evaluating the bulk commodities supply risk from the perspective of physical trade

Geopolitical conflicts, trade barriers, and other factors pose great risks to the stable supply of bulk commodities; however, cross-country and inter-temporal assessments and comparisons of various bulk commodity supply risks from the physical trade perspective are still lacking. This gap hinders a holistic understanding of global resource security and further appropriate policy formulation. Based on the Net Positive Import share, the Worldwide Governance Indicator (WGI), and the Bilateral Relationship Indicator which was innovatively quantified using the Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone (GDELT) this study evaluated 32 bulk commodity supply risks (including agricultural products, metals, and energy fuels) in China, Japan, and the USA for the period 1992–2019. We found that the three countries have experienced different supply risk evolutions related to their diverse domestic resource endowments and socioeconomic developmental stages. During the study period, China had increasing supply risks for 20 of the 32 bulk commodities compared to 10 for Japan and the USA. The overall bulk commodity supply risk increased substantially for China, remained high for Japan, and remained relatively low for the USA. Under increasing global trade system uncertainty, in addition to the supply diversification strategy, we advise net importer countries to utilise news media data such as GDELT to monitor and analyse geopolitical changes, especially for major suppliers, which would help improve resilience to supply disruptions.

Optimal sizing and placement of battery energy storage system for maximum variable renewable energy penetration considering demand response flexibility: A case in Lombok power system, Indonesia

Indonesia is a tropical climate country with considerable renewable electrical energy source prospects, including photovoltaic (PV) and wind energies. Nevertheless, several variable renewable energy sources (VREs) have exhibited uncertain attributes and substantial reliance on natural conditions, leading to unstable load-related power supply risks. Hence, integrating battery energy storage systems (BESSs) with VRE generators is a dependable approach to bolster renewable energy generator applications on a large-scale grid while providing load demand flexibility. This study determined adequate sizing and placement of the BESS to achieve maximum VRE generator penetration while considering the demand response flexibility. Key indicators, including technical minimum load and system ramp capacity, were identified to achieve maximum penetration of thermal generators. This study also combined a unit commitment procedure with direct current optimal power flow (DC-OPF) as a novel approach to determine the maximum VRE penetration level. An optimization problem model concerning mixed integer linear programming (MILP) was subsequently employed in this study using the CPLEX solver in the general algebraic modeling system (GAMS). The study is based on the IEEE RTS-24 system modified and a real-life case study of the Lombok energy system in Indonesia. Results from the simulated Lombok power system highlighted that optimal sizing and placement of the BESS could lower system costs by 37.66%, 33.63%, and 22.26% compared to the current system conditions during the weekday, weekend, and the lowest day scenarios, respectively. The VRE penetrations of the generators were also higher than the current system conditions by 83%, 51%, and 39% during the weekday, weekend, and the lowest day scenarios, respectively.

Developing a smart green supplier risk assessment system integrating natural language processing and life cycle assessment based on AHP framework: An empirical study

Global carbon reduction drives the transformations of corporations, emphasizing carbon and environmental impact within supply chains. A critical challenge in risk management is converting unstructured data into quantifiable information, and ruining the conversion often leads to ineffective risk assessments. While artificial intelligence is increasingly used in supply chain risk management, previous studies seldom integrate text analysis for risk extraction and lack accurate risk assessment methods. This study pioneers an intelligent green supplier risk assessment system integrating natural language processing (NLP) and life cycle assessment (LCA) based on an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) framework. The proposed approach utilizes NLP keyword extraction to identify and assess risk and uses LCA to uncover environmental risks, minimizing negative impacts. The text classification model attains 81.7 % accuracy, ensuring a trustworthy risk assessment system. The proposed method could significantly improve risk analysis efficiency, foster sustainable procurement, and elevate enterprise competitiveness in sustainable business practices.

Risk analysis and resilience assessment of China's oil imports after the Ukraine Crisis：A network-based dynamics model

Global oil trade integration while creating a platform for risk spread. This study established a two-stage model for risk spread and recovery, simulating the cascading impact of oil supply shortage risks. On this basis, an assessment of the resilience of China's oil imports is conducted. The results indicate that, during the risk spread phase, countries causing a significant negative impact on China's oil imports may not necessarily be China's primary import sources. The proportion of indirect losses in Chinese oil imports due to Canadian oil supply shortages accounted for more than 70 % of the total losses. The United States, Singapore, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Brazil repeatedly act as intermediaries in risk spread. For the recovery phase, swiftly restoration of China's initial imports needs to establish new trade relationships with other non-traditional partners through competition. The top three countries in terms of accumulated new trade relationships are Korea (21), Turkmenistan (13), and Mexico (4). Regarding resilience, when the risk originates from Saudi Arabia, China demonstrates the weakest risk resistance, followed by Russia and Iran. The results not only serve as an early warning for China on regional oil supply risks but also provide policy directions for securing oil stable supply.

Research on Supply Chain Risk Prevention and Control of Medical Products Enterprises

This paper firstly analyzes the mode, development background and development status of the medical products supply chain, and finds that the medical products market shows an expanding trend, which requires the prevention and control of supply chain risks. Secondly, this paper identifies the risk factors existing in its current development, mainly supply risk, logistics risk, demand risk, information risk and cooperation risk, and analyzes the five types of risk in detail, points out the risk factors existing in each risk, and enumerates the impacts of each risk on each link of the medical products supply chain. Again, this paper combines the relevant risk factors to propose specific supply chain management countermeasures from three aspects, namely: using innovative digital supply chain models, optimizing internal supply chain processes, and improving the standardized management of medical products production. Finally, the whole paper is summarized and relevant conclusions are drawn, aiming to provide some references for giving full play to the role of medical products supply chain.

Influence of the development of solar photovoltaic industry on the relationship between supply and demand of key minerals in China

The importance of mineral resources cannot be ignored in the country's economic and social development and is of vital significance in securing China's continued economic and social prosperity. Against the backdrop of the country's active promotion of the clean energy industry, the booming development of the photovoltaic industry has triggered a growing demand for its key raw materials, especially important metallic minerals. Based on the system dynamics theory, the article uses Vensim to construct a photovoltaic cell-key metal mineral simulation model to analyze the development of China's photovoltaic industry in depth and focuses on its far-reaching impact on the supply and demand relationship of key minerals. The results of the study show that (1) China's photovoltaic cells show strong growth; (2) recycling and technology substitution can significantly reduce the risk of copper and aluminum supply and demand imbalance; and (3) technology substitution is more effective than recycling in reducing the supply and demand imbalance of copper and aluminum. Based on the above-mentioned findings, the article puts forward corresponding policy recommendations.

Wirkung staatlicher Maßnahmen zur Sicherung der Rohstoffversorgung

Abstract This paper underscores the importance of securing strategic mineral raw materials for economic competitiveness, particularly in Germany. It highlights the dependency on imports, leading to reliance on resource-rich countries. The paper discusses the risks of this dependency, including supply disruptions from exogenous shocks. It explores national economic policies to increase supply security and presents a quantitative analysis showing that active resource policy can significantly reduce supply risk for national companies.

A spatially explicit framework for assessing ecosystem service supply risk under multiple land‐use scenarios in the Xi'an Metropolitan Area of China

AbstractRapid global urbanization has perturbed ecosystem structures and functions, resulting in ecological risk and threatening sustainable human well‐being and socioeconomic development. However, scientific indicators to analyze ecosystem service (ES) risk patterns need to be explored in detail. In addition, studies on ES supply risk are stagnating on historical or status explorations, especially from the view of disturbance from land‐use changes. This study seeks to develop a framework for modeling past‐future ES supply risk pattern evaluation and probing into ES risk patterns under different future land‐use scenarios. To achieve this objective, the framework integrates the Future Land Use Simulation (FLUS) model, the Intelligent Urban Ecosystem Management System (IUEMS) model, and an established indicator system incorporating ES supply trend, hotspots and coldspots, and ES trade‐offs, and synergies. The results show that: (1) In 2050, the supply of climate regulation in the Xi'an Metropolitan Area (XMA) will increase, while that of carbon sequestration and recreation will decrease. In 2050, the supply of climate regulation is the highest under ecological protection (EP) scenario, while the supply of carbon sequestration and recreation are the highest under cropland protection (CP) scenario. (2) From 2000 to 2050, the hotspots and coldspots of climate regulation increase in both natural development (ND) scenario and CP scenario. Notably, CP scenario experiences the most significant reduction in extremely significant hotspots and coldspots of carbon sequestration. From 2000 to 2050, at the regional and pixel scales, climate regulation and carbon sequestration mainly show trade‐offs, and carbon sequestration and recreation show synergies. (3) ES supply risk in XMA is high in the center and low in the north and south. The ES supply risk from 2000 to 2050 is increasing, with expanding “extremely high risk”, “high risk”, and “extremely safe” areas. ES supply risk management should adhere to more strict land‐use policies and guidelines, management zoning for areas with different levels of ES risk, and an accurate understanding of ES trade‐offs and synergies for scientific risk management. This study could provide theoretical and technical references for ES risk assessment research and promote scientific ecological risk management.

Molding the future: Optimization of bioleaching of rare earth elements from electronic waste by Penicillium expansum and insights into its mechanism

The recovery of rare earth elements (REE) from electronic waste is crucial for ensuring future demand security, as there is a high supply risk for this group of elements, and mitigating the environmental impacts of conventional mining. This research focuses on extracting REE from waste printed circuit boards through bioleaching, addressing the limited attention given to this source. A strain of Penicillium expansum demonstrated efficient bioleaching under optimal conditions of 7.5 initial pH, 0.1 mM phosphate concentration, and excluding a buffering agent. The study achieved significant improvements in La and Tb extraction and enhancements in Pr, Nd, and Gd recovery, approaching 70 % within 24 h. Fungal mechanisms involved in REE extraction included fungal pH control, organic acid biosynthesis, phosphate bioavailability, and potential fungal proton pump involvement. This approach offers a promising solution for sustainable REE recovery from e-waste, contributing to resource security and circular economy.

Quantifying food consumption supply risk: An analysis across countries and agricultural products

Resource criticality is the field of study that quantifies supply risks for a set of resources. To assess the vulnerability of a country's food supply, whether domestically produced or imported, supply risk indexes for agricultural products have been developed by adapting a resource criticality method and a supply diversity model. These indexes take into account both the diversity of supply and the risks to which each sourcing option is exposed, such as climate or price volatility.The results enable a comparison of the supply risk of food consumption between different countries and identification of the products with the highest risk of supply disruption for each country. When analysed by region, the results indicate that North America and Europe generally have lower supply risk across all products than the rest of the world, while African and Sub-Saharan countries tend to have the highest supply risk. Furthermore, the analysis of supply risks for four cereals - wheat, maize, rice, and sorghum - indicates that trade diversification can reduce supply risks for wheat and maize in many countries. However, for rice and sorghum, supply risk reduction will most likely be achieved through stockpiling, export redirection, and adaptation of agriculture to climate change. The results highlight the importance of supply risk indexes for decision-making, particularly when compared to self-sufficiency. Finally, limitations and new perspectives are discussed, including the need to adapt the index to nutritional data, consider competition for agricultural product usage, and refine climate or economic risk indexes.

A fuzzy model for generalized transportation problems in China

SummaryThis study underscores the growing significance of multimodal transportation within the cargo sector and its consequential environmental impacts. We present a novel mathematical model for operation scheduling, incorporating variables such as resource availability, customer service benchmarks, and environmental considerations. Our objective is to mitigate transportation expenses and reduce delivery delays. The proposed approach advocates LU decomposition with a pivot strategy for rapid model resolution, adherence to convergence criteria, optimization of cost strategies, and efficient resource utilization. Leveraging the adaptive neural fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and genetic algorithm (GA), our methodology facilitates learning from past decisions to enhance solutions, aligning supply, and demand efficiently. We evaluate financial and environmental implications across four scenarios, offering insights into the economic and environmental advantages of various transportation modes—trains, ships, airplanes—compared to truck transportation, with a specific focus on CO2 emission impacts. Implementing the ANFIS+GA model in multimodal scenarios yield impressive results: minimal MAPE transportation cost of 0.17%, R2 transportation cost of 0.996, MAPE CO2 emissions of 0.13%, and R2 CO2 emissions of 0.996. By identifying cost‐efficient routes and optimizing resource allocations, our approach enables informed decisions regarding vehicle distribution, supplier selection, and contract negotiations. Additionally, we use LU decomposition to establish the supplier risk threshold, crucial for comparing emission trade variances. Multimodal scenarios typically yield lower emissions, favoring buying emission allowances low and selling them high. Notably, the risk threshold affects low‐emission provider utilization, impacting transportation emissions. With a risk threshold of 0.12 and an emission price of 1.2, our ANFIS+GA‐based multimodal approach achieves a significant −20% deviation in CO2 emissions.

Reducing supply risk of critical materials for clean energy via foreign direct investment

Reducing supply risk of critical materials for clean energy via foreign direct investment

Robust sourcing contract design for the manufacturer under supply risk

Robust sourcing contract design for the manufacturer under supply risk

Integrating improved ecosystem status assessment and ecosystem management urgency to identify important zones for ecological protection and restoration

The implementation of ecological protection and restoration (EPR) aims to provide the corresponding ecosystem services (ESs) for the region’s long-term development. Ecosystem status, usually evaluated by ecosystem quality, is an important foundation for delineating EPR zones. However, previous assessment methods fail to consider the effects of site conditions on ecosystem status. Furthermore, if limited resources are allocated to areas where ecosystem management is less urgent, the overall efficiency of the process will be compromised. To fill this gap, we developed a new framework that integrated improved ecosystem status assessment and ecosystem management urgency (EMU) to identify important EPR zones. To begin, the study area was divided into several ecosystem site type based on the site-condition factors, such as soil, climate, and others. Ecological quality then was assessed by parameters from remote sensing, including leaf area index, fractional vegetation cover, etc., which supported the identification of potential EPR zones based on a more accurate assessment of ecosystem status. Secondly, the EMU was determined by assessing the risk of ES supply–demand in the future under various development paths of the study area, potential EPR zones with great EMU are the EPR zones. Finally, the importance levels for EPR were divided by ecosystem quality to improve the practicability of EPR projects, and the important EPR zones are those where we should focus our efforts. The new framework was implemented in Hunan Province, a representative province in China of marked contradiction between economic development and ecosystem protection. The findings show that there is a 58.7 % disparity in the spatial distribution of potential EPR zones, depending on whether the impacts of site conditions on ecosystem status are taken into account or not; and given the EMU, the extent of important EPR zones under natural growth path (NGP) and economic development path (EDP) account for 0.43 % (902.15 km2) and 0.56 % (1195.43 km2) of the study area, respectively, comparing to the existing protection zones, there is 7.2 % (NGP) and 10.1 % (EDP) of vacancy, respectively. Under the ecosystem conservation path, the extent of EPR zones is 0, indicating that the ecosystem will recover gradually without the need for excessive human intervention. The new framework can assist in accurately identifying important EPR zones and promoting regional development by advanced ecosystem intervention in areas with potential risk in the future.

An Integrated and Multi-Stakeholder Approach for Sustainable Phosphorus Management in Agriculture

Conventional agriculture relies on non-renewable rock phosphate as a source of phosphorus. The demand for food has led to increased phosphorus inputs, with a negative impact on freshwater biodiversity and food security. The importation of phosphorus fertilizers makes most food systems vulnerable to phosphorus supply risks. The geopolitical instability generated by the pandemic and the current Russia–Ukraine conflict, which has led to a 400% increase in phosphorus commodity prices, offers the international community and institutions an opportunity to embrace the global phosphorus challenge and move towards a more circular system. Here, we discuss an integrated and multi-stakeholder approach to improve phosphorus management in agriculture and increase the efficiency of the whole chain, highlighting the contribution of conventional breeding and genetic engineering, with a particular focus on low-phytic-acid (lpa) crops, whose grains may help in reducing phosphorus-management-related problems. In recent decades, the choice of short-term strategies—such as the use of phytase as a feed additive—rather than lpa mutants, has been carried out without considering the long-term money saving to be derived from lpa crops. Overall, lpa crops have the potential to increase the nutritional quality of foods and feeds, but more research is needed to optimize their performance.

Techno-economic evaluation of antimony and bismuth upcycling from pyrometallurgical copper wastes

The recovery of critical raw materials (CRMs) is important to reduce the supply risk disruption and the dependency on third-countries within the European Union (EU). The present study evaluates the techno-economic implications of antimony (Sb) and bismuth (Bi) recovery from the process stream produced in the polishing stages of the copper electrorefining circuit. The upcycling process was based on the selective precipitation of Sb and Bi from the concentrated hydrochloric acid (HCl) (up to 5–6 M) process stream containing high arsenic (As) concentrations. Four different scenarios were included in the evaluation, in which Sb and Bi were recovered as Sb4O5Cl2(s)/Sb2O3(s) and BiOCl(s)/Bi2O3(s), respectively. The results showed that implementing Bi and Sb upcycling configurations in the copper metallurgical facilities was economically feasible when recovering BiOCl(s)/Sb4O5Cl2(s) and BiOCl(s)/Sb2O3(s) from the eluate stream. Sb recovery was the most cost-intensive process in all the configurations evaluated due to the high chemical requirements needed to neutralize the free HCl excess. The consumption of chemicals represented the most important cost contributor, since high amounts of chemicals are needed for the selective Sb and Bi precipitation. The sensitivity analysis illustrated that recovering these CRMs was economically attractive for all the configurations when achieving Sb and Bi prices above 8.5 and 9.5 €/kg, respectively. Under these CRM prices, the payback period and internal rate of return for the different scenarios range from 4 to 19 years and from 6 to 28 %, respectively. This output highlights that future increase in CRM prices can be an important driver to implement Sb and Bi recovery schemes. Overall, the results of this study highlight the economic potential of implementing Sb and Bi recovery schemes in copper metallurgical plants to align with the ambitious circular economy objectives established by the EU.

Correction: Platform pricing and blockchain adoption for capacity sharing with cross-network externality and supply risk

Correction: Platform pricing and blockchain adoption for capacity sharing with cross-network externality and supply risk

The Extraction and Separation of Scarce Critical Metals: A Review of Gallium, Indium and Germanium Extraction and Separation from Solid Wastes

Gallium (Ga), indium (In), and germanium (Ge) play an important role in the modern high-tech material field. Due to their low content and scattered distribution in the crust, and the increasing demand for these metals in recent years, their supply risks have sharply increased. Therefore, the recycling of these metals is of great significance. In this work, a systematic review was performed using the Web of Science, Scopus, MDPI, Elsevier, and Springer Link databases. The combined terms used for the search were Ga/In/Ge, extraction, separation, and recycling. After a careful evaluation of the titles, abstracts, and full texts, a total of 106 articles were included. This paper briefly describes the resource features of Ga, In, and Ge. After that, the chemical principles, technical parameters, and metal recovery in various extraction and separation methods from monometallic and polymetallic resources are systematically reviewed. Leaching followed by solvent extraction or ion exchange is the main process for Ga, In, and Ge recovery. Although many attempts have been made to separate multiple metals from leaching solutions, highly selective solvents and resins are still the research priority. This review can provide theoretical and technical guidance for the separation of Ga, In, and Ge from various resources.

Impact of supply risk on cost pass-through

ABSTRACT We study the cost pass-through rate in a supply chain setting where a buying firm sources from either a single unreliable supplier or dual unreliable suppliers. Numerous papers studying cost pass-through rates have assumed that supply is always certain and ample, which is not usually the case in practice. We find that the cost pass-through rate should depend on the supply uncertainty, its risk-sharing levels with upstream suppliers, and different sourcing strategies. In particular, the cost pass-through rate increases in supply risk-sharing levels, but decreases under single sourcing, compared to dual sourcing.