4flow participates in NOLAN research project

Initiative develops scalable supply chain solutions for urban crisis management

Contaminated water, electronic payment network outages, shortages of crude oil – supplying urban populations with critical resources in crisis situations can best be accomplished if public and private institutions work together. Supply chain experts from 4flow research are investigating this topic as part of the NOLAN project, a collaborative public-private initiative that aims to investigate scalable emergency supply chain solutions for catastrophes in urban areas. The ultimate goal of the project is to develop an effective, practicable concept for the collaborative provision of essential goods like food, water, and medication in times of need.

“Crisis situations pose additional challenges for the complex supply chain networks that serve large cities,” said Stefan Wolff, CEO of 4flow. “We look forward to contributing our expertise in supply chain crisis management to this field of research over the next three years.”

For the duration of the project, supply chain experts at 4flow research will focus on modeling commercial supply chains, while 4flow’s partners in the NOLAN initiative – the Institute for Environmental and Technological Law at TU Dresden and the Institute for Industrial Production at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology – will concentrate on answering legal questions pertaining to the project and modeling humanitarian supply chains, respectively. “4flow’s modeling will focus on investigating the problems of incentivization and distribution. We will also be considering the roles of key actors and interest groups,” said Wendelin Gross, head of 4flow research. The concept will be designed to optimize the use of private resources in crisis situations.

NOLAN is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and supported by a wide network of partners.

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