According to the 2022 business survey Institute for Economic Research (Wifo), 40 percent of domestic companies stated that the lack of material caused by disrupted supply chains had a negative impact on their own production. The newly founded institute for supply chain research (Supply Chain Intelligence Institute Austria – “ASCII” for short) is intended to make the structure of supply networks visible and make risks visible. The WIFO, Complexity Science Hub and the Logistikum of the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria are involved.
Research into the supply chain problem is currently proving to be difficult because there is simply a lack of data. In order to collect valid findings, an interdisciplinary research approach using methods from mathematics, economics and logistics should be applied. The director of the ASCII is the complexity researcher Peter Klimek, who wants to be the contact person for companies in addition to his consulting work for politics.
At a press conference on Monday, Federal Minister Martin Kocher and State Councilor Markus Achleitner (both VP) announced the details of ASCII. Both the federal and state governments are funding the project for five years with a total of ten million euros (federal government: 7.5 million, state: 2.5 million). According to Kocher, the supply chains are “sometimes severely disrupted” due to the corona pandemic and the Ukraine war. An analysis would therefore be “crucial” for the long-term safeguarding of value creation.
“We are probably the first country in Europe to set up such an institute,” the Federal Minister continued. For Provincial Councilor Achleitner, knowledge of supply chains is “essential” for Upper Austria. The focus of the ASCII in the automotive and semiconductor industries is also “particularly important from an Upper Austrian perspective”. In addition to the headquarters in Vienna, the institute will also have a location in Steyr.
Wifo boss Gabriel Felbermayr, who will also become president of the institute at the same time, wants to “set an example in the European context” with the ASCII, with which one will also be heard “in Germany and Brussels”.
