CritSupPort

With the CritSupPort project, we are working with partners from science and practice to strengthen the crisis resilience of central logistics hubs in Germany. The focus is on seaports and inland ports as systemically critical hubs for the supply of essential goods – especially from the food and health sectors.

Global supply chains are highly interconnected, time-critical, and susceptible to disruption. Even a few days of restricted port operations can have a serious impact on the availability of medicines, food, or intermediate products. Against the backdrop of increasing extreme weather events, geopolitical tensions, cyber risks, and hybrid threats, CritSupPort is developing cross-sector solutions for preventive risk and crisis management.

Risk analysis and prioritization of critical goods

At the heart of the project is the data-based analysis of selected supply chains that run through the ports of Hamburg and Duisburg – two of Europe's most important logistics hubs. Together with practitioners, logistical, technical, and organizational dependencies are systematically recorded and translated into scenarios that simulate several weeks of restricted port operations.

Based on this, the project is developing procedures for identifying and prioritizing critical goods in container traffic. The aim is to provide a transparent, comprehensible, and legally secure basis for decision-making in the event of a crisis. Existing operational processes are taken into account, as are regulatory frameworks at state, federal, and EU level.

Cross-sector crisis management

A key innovation of CritSupPort lies in the development of an intersectoral communication and coordination model. Port operators, shipping companies, logistics companies, authorities, and stakeholders from trade and healthcare are brought together in a joint risk and crisis management approach.

The analysis and decision-making tools developed are tested and optimized in business games and simulation formats. This results in a practical overall concept that can be applied not only to the supply chains under consideration, but also to other logistics infrastructures.

Transfer and social resilience

CritSupPort sees itself as an application-oriented research project with a clear transfer requirement. Results are prepared in handouts, training modules, and specialist publications and disseminated via networks in business, administration, and science.

The project thus makes a substantial contribution to strengthening security of supply in Germany – and to developing a resilient, adaptive infrastructure for dealing with complex crisis scenarios.